An Awfully Big Adventure
by Willofthewisp
Summary: "A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets." Time restarts, the life of the curse ticking away, and so it is time to begin letting go of the past and finding a future. The series through the eyes of the good Captain. Captain Swan
1. 8:15

His heart beats first. He can feel, almost hear, his blood circulating again. The sounds of the forest surround them, the chirping birds, the rustle of the leaves in the wind. Even the gulps of frogs echo from the pond nearby. The smells—sunshine, water, soil—smother him until he can at last open his eyes.

"Broken," he mouths, still searching for his voice. It comes out hoarse, but stronger now. "Is the curse broken?"

Cora flexes her neck, her cloak tapering down into the tall grass. Her step forward requires all her strength from the looks of it, so he waits, content to just flick an ankle until she answers. Eyes closed, he doesn't know what she expects to find out other than the fact that being able to once again feel all the senses being stimulated is rejuvenating. Alive, Killian Jones alive again.

"No," she says, placing a hand over her chest to clear her throat. "No. Not yet. Time has only started again."

Working with Cora leaves little room for doubt, so he attempts walking. Wobbly, to be sure, but he steadies himself, accustomed to a rollicking deck. _You won't even notice_, she'd told him. True enough, he thinks. After twenty-eight years, this small island looks no different. Alive, and everything awaiting.

* * *

Lancelot has taken it upon himself to rebuild this corner of the realm, a brave and noble ex-knight apparently better qualified for the job than brave and noble non-ex-knights. The people, peasants mostly, are at his beck and call when they aren't thatching, carving, chopping, tying... They've nailed crude drawings of people on the tree trunks, those that the curse may have taken. Scouts ride farther and farther every day bringing the same news back with them as always—castles in ruin and whole villages in shambles.

Lancelot speaks to them at every meal, stands up and holds out his hands like a clergyman, spouting out bits of hope, that the curse will break, that the royals will all return with answers and plans. While not part of the survivors' hold, not yet, he shares their impatience. The promised Savior must clearly not want to rush into anything.

He wonders how the Dark One will look in a Land Without Magic. Ragged, he hopes, overworked and pitiful, a complete reversal from the last time he saw him.

"What news?" he asks, hearing Cora's footfalls behind him. He's far enough from the fort that no one will spot his campfire this late at night, and yet those left here with some fighting skills manage to keep the ogres at bay. The footfalls can only be Cora.

"Nothing new, but things are happening. People are getting emboldened by the monotony." She looms over the fire and warms her hands, but doesn't sit. "It won't be long before they'll find us. They'll be anxious to know why we haven't introduced ourselves sooner."

"Then perhaps now is the time to do just that."

"Enough of them know me as Regina's mother." She sighs. "It's not always good to have your reputation precede you."

Clamping his mouth shut, his tongue rolls around in his mouth. His eyes focus on a firefly.

"I say let it."

"What?"

"You have magic. I find it hard to believe any of them do. Why haven't you already taken over their little hold?"

"Because I don't know what will happen when the curse breaks." And there it starts, that condescending tone she uses, always that "mother knows best" demeanor not limited to her own offspring. "Say the curse breaking does in fact send all of its victims back here. That's an awful lot of people who would be eager to put me back in my place. Besides, I don't have the option to take over as a beloved leader."

"Why not?"

To answer him, she beckons him to follow her to the treeline. Shivering at his front now facing away from the fire, he adjusts his eyes to the darkness and pushes through it until he all but steps on Lancelot, nothing but a heap on the forest floor. A heartless heap, most likely.

"I crushed his heart when he found me," she says with all the passion of a bored child doing recitations. She folds her arms in thought. "I suppose I'll just have to pass myself off as him. That should do the trick, don't you think?"

"Pretending the dead to be alive? I have more experience with the other way around, and that doesn't hold out forever." He wonders what the crocodile is up to in this foreign land, probably sleeping, probably feeling so guiltless, smug, free. His hand drifts around to the grip of his sword.

"Well, you wanted an introduction. Here." She places her wrists together and holds them out to him. "You can win them over with a prisoner."

"I don't think so."

"What?"

"It would be best if they never saw us together. You'd have better luck just turning yourself in. The guards will do whatever they think they have to do with you and when their backs are turned, you can sentence yourself as you see fit."

"And where do you fit into all that?" she asks, nodding, already sold.

"I'll come later, perhaps out of ogre territory." There are the makings of a fine tale, he thinks with a smirk. "Might explain this at any rate," he says, holding up his lack of hand. He won't take the hook off, not yet, not here, but a sack of some kind with a haphazard collection of belongings in it could conceal it long enough.

"I'll come to you with instructions of where to meet periodically," she says, loosening her bun and letting her hair tumble down. Picking up a clump of dirt, she grates it against her hair, tangling the strands. "Best look as if I'm in need of refuge. Bury that before you show up." Indicating the body with the toe of her shoe, she slips into the darkness and out of sight.

You're welcome, he wishes he could call out to her.

* * *

Lancelot still boosts the spirits of the people, finding solace in the action of capturing their hearts...literally. Not everyone's, Cora is too prudent for that, but he notices day in and day out while working in the flames of the smithy who comes out of the fearless leader's tent more muted than before. It's pure terror when she has hold of a heart, but he thanks fortune or whatever gods still watch over him that she chose not to control him through his all those years ago. He can't live like that, so dimmed and lackluster. The memory of her hand inside him, clutching his heart in a vice grip, along with recent activities causes his heart to seize every time she comes to the blacksmith's work station in her disguise. He'll have to find a way to be useful to her soon if he still wants her talents on his side. She had stepped into the work station earlier, as Lancelot, saying there was no time to talk but if they met later, she had news of the utmost importance.

She won't pull his heart out here, not all the way out here on the beach. If she wanted him dead, she wouldn't bother to toy with him this way. It would have been over and done with. Quick. Neat. Meticulous.

But she's late. He's peered through his spyglass at the same strip of land every five minutes or so to keep his nerves in check, for without Cora, he doesn't know what to do, and that can't stay the reality forever. Partners are only partners when they are equals, when each one is able to do a thing for the other; otherwise, one person is a hindrance, a load, and loads get dumped and left behind.

"Hello, Hook," she says, ambling along, looking successful as ever. His heart races at the possibility of news, but he will maintain his pride.

"Hello, Cora. You told me you had something important to show me." He swears to everything sacred, to love, to life, if she meant his heart... Instead she produces a bottle, containing an ashy substance, violet, flecks of pink and gold glittering around it. Of course it's bound to be significant. She's too pleased with herself for anything less, but she tries his patience. These people try his patience. Time itself, the Savior, the Dark One all try his patience and expect him to leap up in the air at the sight of bottled dust.

"Sparkly dirt. Wonderful."

"Just the remains of a magical wardrobe that can travel between worlds."

"Is there enough to get us to where we need to go?" It's late in the game to hope, yet he does in spite of himself.

"Not quite, but it's a start." She smiles at him. They seem to feel the same thing at the same time for once, a guarded exhilaration. He won't hold back a smile just yet, so starved for something to celebrate, to pass some milestone.

"We're almost ready to set sail," he says, summoning up the image of a portal. Soon. "What's our port of destination?" He wants to know everything, every region of the Land Without Magic, even though he knows even Cora won't have that information just yet...the villages, the cities, just the way the air moves.

"Storybrooke."

"Curious name." He fights the urge to repeat it, again and again like it will materialize before his very eyes. "Is that where..."

"...she is." Cora inhales. "And so is he."

He can touch Storybrooke if he just holds out his hand and breathes its name, can see the portal as if it were spinning in front of him right now. Soon is simply not soon enough.

"Excellent. You'll be able to see your daughter, and I can skin myself a crocodile."

"There's something you need to do first."

"And that is?" It doesn't matter. Anything.

"I have a grandson," she says to the sand, lips tightened together. "Henry. Ask yourself how I might have come by that information."

"I can't venture a guess, not right now. Tell me everything."

"Mulan brought visitors with her on her journey back from rescuing Aurora. Snow White and her daughter."

"And you want me to..." He never would have attempted to break into Regina's castle so long ago without knowing a thing or two about Snow White, the Queen's stepdaughter and recipient of her obsessive wrath. She'd disappeared for a while, a bandit in the woods by several accounts, then married to King George's heir. Killian had stayed out of the battle for the kingdom. Kingdoms never had appealed to him much. Last he'd heard, the young princess had succeeded in her coups, prompting Regina to cast her curse in the first place. Then the curse breaking did send everyone back? That couldn't be. The uproar that would incite would have reached them even here.

"They're looking for the same thing we are," she explains. "I want you to assist them. There's no need to prevent them from doing our work for us."

"Do they know about the compass?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"They're clever, but not omnipotent," she laughs. "Assist them, guide them wherever they want to go, and find out all you can about this place we're going to. I won't take any chances now that we're so close." They turn back to walk back to the fort, the ashes safe within her robes. He watches her, some nagging thought pulling her off of her high from earlier, only a little, though. "In your experience, why would two women reluctantly share a child?"

"Is this a riddle?"

"The daughter, she told Lancelot she shares her son with Regina." He offers his arm to her for the incline. Ladylike Cora. He has a harder and harder time picturing her retrieving the compass.

"You haven't dealt much in the poorer circles, dear Cora," he says. "Parents die. Parents run off. There are circumstances in which a parent just can't provide for the child anymore and has to resort to more creative solutions. It's really not as unusual as you assume." It should be, he thinks, but he'll keep his and Liam's own childhoods out of it. They hadn't needed anyone else in the long run anyway.

"You're saying Regina fostered this boy for her," she concludes.

"My guess is that she was left in some situation where she couldn't care for the lad herself."

"As I told you, find out everything you can, if the boy is merely Regina's ward or if there is something more...affectionate in the works."


	2. Collide

What the bloody hell has the woman done? Bodies lay on top of bodies, their hearts conveniently missing. A few minions here and there had suddenly escalated to a small personal guard, no doubt. He hadn't journeyed too far beyond the fort these last few months, but suffice it to say this wouldn't exactly help the realm resume much of a population. Rushing into his work station, he pulls his satchel out and throws on his smithy's smock. Pulling out the stopper of his flask with his teeth, he downs a bit of rum. And now we wait, he tells himself.

Mulan, he's seen around a few times, stoic, laconic. She shares nothing with anyone and left with Prince Philip in the blink of an eye for his princess. If indeed she had led the visitors to the wardrobe, then they had to be aware of Cora. The inevitable next step will be coming back here to alert everyone of the ruse, and try to pinpoint her location.

Snow White he should be able to discern, even though descriptions of royalty do lean towards the generous side. Raven hair, skin white as the snow...compassionate and kindly—perhaps then more gullible than Mulan.

"I don't know if I can do this. I'm not a very good liar," he hears from the brush. Back already. Scrambling out of the work station, he inhales at the dull, lifeless eyes all staring up at him. Hiding in plain sight and in need of aid arouses less suspicion than just randomly running out of one of these tents, he decides. Blessed are those with strong stomachs, he thinks with a resigned bob of the head and wedges himself between two of the heftier corpses, disturbing a couple of flies.

"It's not really a lie, Aurora. Lancelot did die an honorable death and Cora did escape. All true," another voice utters. Maybe he shouldn't have lodged himself in so much as now he'll have to match their voices to their faces.

"Just leave the particulars to us. There's no reason to cause unnecessary panic among your people."

"I'm not so sure it's unnecessary..."

They've quieted. That can only mean they're on the verge of discovering the damage...or that the ogres are returning...and here you are stuck beneath a pile of corpses like an idiot. He can hear one of them explaining this had to be Cora's doing, closer. He wiggles a bit, just bucking his hips an inch or two, an elbow nudge. They walk on top of the debris, the creaks louder and louder. It shouldn't be too much longer before one of them spots him. Letting out a groan and a wave, he hears them coming closer, their voices urgent and alert.

"Please," he utters when he feels hands pulling him out. He feels several degrees cooler now that he's free, being sure to shake a little. "Please help me."

"It's okay. You're safe now. We won't hurt you." Skin white as snow indeed. The quiver slung over clothing styles he's never seen before provides a strange image. Blinking a few times, the sun blaring down, he spies the other one, although the light catches her hair just the right way that keeps her from becoming too clear.

"Thank you..." he rattles off, holding out an arm. The smallest one takes charge, humorous since she is the only one not dressed for trekking through the forest. He can't place too much of his weight on her, for her kind snaps like a twig.

"Can you walk?" Snow White asks, her arms extended outward as if to catch him.

"Yes, thank you." All of him trembles, his voice following right along with his legs. It's not too difficult, given the number of dead all around them. The other one in the odd clothes faces away from him, busy kneeling over the bodies.

"Is anyone else alive?" she asks, looking right up at him just as he was about to look over his shoulder to see everyone else's positions. It forces him to do a double take.

"I don't know."

"Help him over there. He needs to sit down so he doesn't go into shock," Snow White instructs the princess, Aurora. She hustles over to the one that must be her daughter. The eyebrows, the shape of their faces, eyes, mouth—the hair the only highly distinguishable feature. "Emma! Are there any other survivors?" He mouths the name, not sure why.

"Come with me. Sit down." Aurora pulls him to one of the tables, taking a few turns so the bodies are out of sight. Considerate lass, he thinks, nodding at her as he plops into the chair, holding his head down. Snow White returns, but the other two, Mulan and the daughter, Emma, still hang back, probably still hopeful there are others to save.

"They'll be coming back with some water," she says, touching his arm.

"Thank you." Tucking his head into his chest, he cocks his head, attempting to listen to what the other two are saying, a quick "You think he's lying" enough for him to bring his head up. Emma seems to be the only one to notice, immediately lowering her voice until it's well out of his hearing range. A series of phrases and body language runs through his head, allowing him to pick and choose until he believes he has the perfect combination to be nothing less than convincing. That's all that's required for right now. Trust can come later.

"Here you go," she says, placing a cup in front of him which Mulan fills with water. Aurora and Snow take this as a cue to gather around, the former also accepting water.

"I can't thank you enough for your kindness. Fortune, it seems, has seen fit to show me favor." Something's wrong. She's not looking at him; rather, she keeps her eyes focused on what's in front of her, not bothering to glance in his direction until he's finished speaking, gauging his gestures, he supposes. Something must be wrong. She's not smiling, not sitting down to comfort him...sizing him up. Win this one over and you'll win them all over, he tells himself.

"An island full of corpses," she begins. And she's tactful. "You're the only one to escape. How exactly did that happen?"

One thing in his favor, he realizes, is that any regular, innocent victim of a sudden onslaught would of course find it hard to recount every detail, scorched as they might be in his brain. Don't give away more than you need, mate, he warns himself. The more plot lines, the more holes to be found.

"She attacked at night—slaughtered everyone in one fell swoop. When she started ripping out people's hearts, I hid under the bodies of those who had already been killed, pretended to be dead myself." He addresses all of them and all of them look like they are accepting the tale as fact. Except her. Now you need to look right at her, in the eyes. "Mercifully the ruse worked."

"So much for fortune favoring the brave," she mutters. Ah, love, I won't take that bait. It's obvious what tactic she's using, hoping his pride and dignity will demand he alter the story a little more and a little more until he's no longer a coward and nothing he previously said is plausible. He won't take offense. Something tells him this woman wouldn't take much of anything at face value from anyone.

"It was all I could do to survive."

She sits, somewhat, on the bench, leaning forward and sticking her head out so they are eye to eye. Looking away would confirm every suspicion behind that pretty face of hers. Her fingers curl in and out before she opens her mouth.

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret," she says, her voice lower, no mistake to be made by her tone. "I'm pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me."

"I'm telling you the truth." He's seen it before, guards and the like questioning a suspect only for the suspect to take an offense at insinuations that had never officially been stated. She doesn't know him. He doesn't know her. She's shrewd, he'll give her that, leery enough about Cora that anything she didn't orchestrate herself could very well be a trap. She smiles at him, and for the first time, he holds his breath. A knowing smile, one trying so hard to mask that she's putting her all into reading him. Unsure if she's placated, he can only go with the flow as she stands back up.

"We should leave here in case Cora decides to come back," Mulan says, ever sober and sensible.

"We should start searching for a new portal back to Storybrooke. I only got about five minutes with my husband...not to mention my grandson," Snow White says. He can feel her eyes on him. Damn. The mother throwing out the most perfect statement to react to, the daughter still watching him and ready to detect a lie in his unavoidable response...he had no choice but to try.

"You have a grandson?" he asks, repeating in his mind over and over that it bloody well _is _unexpected for a woman her age, her physical age, to have a grandchild.

"Long story," she says with a shrug, and for a moment, he dares to hope he's in the clear. They all prepare for a walk, no one tense.

"Well I know this land well. I can guide you."

His head follows his hair, fingers, talons, yanking it back at the same time the skin of his throat prickles at the sudden realization cold steel is pressed against it. Emma. The blade is held with a steady hand, the tips of her hair brushing the side of his face.

"You're not guiding us anywhere until you tell us who you really are," she snarls at him.

"What are you doing?" he asks, the back of his head hitting her arm as he tries to back away from her knife.

"Mulan, get the rope. You, get up."

He can see himself slithering out of her hold, taking her arms with him before throwing her to the ground, but Snow White has readied her bow, a mother bear not to be tempted, and Mulan has drawn her sword. There are coils of rope all over the fort. It takes no time for Mulan to snatch plenty of it up. Emma shuffles forward, pushing him along out beyond the posts toward the field. She gestures with her head to a nearby tree, painting more of his face with strands of her hair. She's panting, her heaving chest lodged in his back, but the hand with the weapon remains undeterred.

"I already told you. I'm just a blacksmith," he pleads. Surely one of them will second guess this action, will take pity on him. Just a bystander, after all, just a scared man doing what he needed to do to survive. She has to know ogres prowl the field. They won't go near the wooden posts of the fort anymore, leaving the more stubborn ones to stalk the fields in hopes of hearing an animal or something more human-sized swishing through the grass. Stay quiet, he begs her with his mind. There's no reason to involve the ogres in this little altercation...

"Sure you are," she says, then whistles. Shit. Shit and bloody hell and all other expletives in all languages! "You don't want to talk to us? Maybe you'll talk to the ogres while they rip you limb from limb."

Roars belonging to invisible predators pierce his very soul. Even her companions appear anxious. Another roar even has Emma spinning around, backing away from the tree. They're close. Given their size, they can cross the field in seconds and won't leave until they find a morsel, no matter how effectively he silences himself.

"You...you can't just leave me here like this!" he cries. They already have, git. If they run, now, they can just narrowly miss becoming meals themselves.

"What if he's telling the truth?" Aurora asks, her eyes wide with horror. Hanging back, her feet still move.

"He's not."

No, he will not go out like this. Answers, truthful ones, will be the only thing that could bring her back. He'll concede this one if it means he'll stay alive.

"Good for you!" he shouts after her, his voice still quivering. It stops her dead in her tracks. "You bested me. I can count the amount of people who've done that on one hand."

"That supposed to be funny?" No, love, it's supposed to bring your ass back here to untie me and keep me away from the ogres. They march back, all with the same deliberate expressions. "Who are you?"

"Killian Jones, but most people have taken to calling me by my more colorful moniker—Hook." She braces herself. Emma has just braced herself. It bolsters him.

"Hook," Snow White repeats, eyes widening.

"Check my satchel."

"As in Captain Hook?" Emma's face settles on what he'll decide is annoyance for now, a "what next" attitude he finds much less flattering. However, he'll ignore it.

"Ah, so you've heard of me." From the corner of his eye, he notes the horror on Snow White's face when she lifts the hook out of the satchel. The tree grove in this distance...but not so in the distance as he'd like...rustles, irritated growls and rumbles following. They should dispense with the recognition and untie him now that they know his name. He pulls on the ropes, fully aware how pointless said action is.

"You better hurry up. They're getting closer," Emma says. Thank you, love. Hadn't noticed. "So unless you want to be dinner, you better start talking." She's no longer angry, at least not visibly. More matter-of-fact, like it's all up to him now. Not really, he thinks, laughing at himself, not even able to backtrack to a moment where he erred. She just knew. Clever, as Cora had said. Maybe clever enough to outwit the witch.

"Cora wanted me to gain your trust so I could learn everything there is to know about your Storybrooke." It still sounds so ridiculous on his tongue. "She didn't want any surprises when she finally got over there."

"She can't get there. We destroyed the wardrobe," Snow White argues.

"Ah, but the enchantment remains. Cora gathered the ashes. She's going to use them to open up a portal."

They can hear them, the ogres.

"Now if you'll kindly cut me loose," he growls.

"No," Mulan says, pointing her sword in his direction. Yes, gut the man tied to the tree while the ogres are in hot pursuit. He rolls his eyes at her. "We should leave him here to die to pay for all the lives he took." Snow's mouth gapes open at the suggestion, but he knows enough now to look at Emma, whose hardened, cold face leaves precious little room for hope.

"Let's go," she says...but it's a bluff...maybe.

"Wait. Wait!" Abandoning any precaution against the ogres, he yells it anyway, orders it. "You need me alive!" Partners. Equals. Opportunities are meant to be taken.

"Why?"

"Because we both want the same thing—to get back to your land." Ah, that brings her closer. Combative and presumably insulted by his words, but closer. There's a desperation to this Emma he finds familiar, the distrust towards the entire world, probably knowledgeable in all sorts of unsavory ways to get by.

"You would say anything to save yourself. Why are we supposed to believe you now?" she snaps.

"I arranged for transport with Cora, but seeing how resourceful you are, I'll offer you the same deal. I'll help you, if you promise to take me along."

"How are you going to help us get home?" Snow White's bow is at the ready, Aurora jumping at more hunting noises from the ogres. Not much time now.

"The ashes will open a portal, but to find your land, she needs more. There's an enchanted compass. Cora seeks it. I'll help you obtain it before she does." For a second, he wonders if that's enough to be cut loose, or if he's just doomed all five of them. He hadn't told Cora much about the beanstalk, not its location, of course not, but if she chose to track them somehow and is able to see him climb it without her... One thing at a time, mate, he reminds himself.

"So Cora won't make it to Storybrooke and we'll be one step closer to getting home," Emma whispers, mainly to herself. It's the way she glances back at her mother for confirmation, the way her hair swishes with her, that affirms it—she's been alone too long to want to depend on another person's opinion. It's only this, this miraculous, impossible option of returning to her home that makes her seek out consultation.

"Sounds too good to be true," Snow White says, shaking her head.

"There's only one way to find out." They don't want to leave him here, at least not as much as Mulan does, the roars nearby somehow describing precisely what would happen to him if they did so.

Emma brings her knife up again, its tip right into his chin.

"You tell me one thing, and whatever you say, I better believe it—why does Captain Hook want to go to Storybrooke?"

Oh, he will gladly share that information. He turns his head enough to stare right into her eyes...a greenish, hazel hue, flecks of brown.

"To exact revenge on the man who took my hand...Rumpelstiltskin."

She blinks, so he blinks, leaning back into the tree now that she believes him..and she does believe him, an air of surprise in her expression, but one of...understanding? Now he longs to ask if she knows him in her land, if she knows him to be the sort of creature that would incite another man's hatred. Legitimized, she and Mulan reach around for the ropes, slicing and sawing through them with haste, everyone knowing now is the time to keep silent.

"Tie his hands..." Emma trails off, paying heed to his stump for the first time. He grins. "Tie his wrists."

* * *

**A/N: Hi! As you might have noticed, this story is a combination of what we see on the show plus the little "filling in the gaps" moments essential to any POV story. I know we're already into "The Doctor," but the pace will slow down a little now that we're coming into "Tallahassee" territory. Please review! **


	3. Emma Swan

**A/N: Special thanks to the "OUAT Episode Transcripts" website for a way to double check dialogue and to whoever "KillianHook" is on youtube for posting ALL of the guy's scenes. This really would not have been possible without those two sites...or it might have, but it would have been a much longer, more pains-taking process. I also do not own the show...just wish I worked on it.**

* * *

An hour of walking puts everyone in a much, _much_ merrier mood than before... The idle chatter fell by the wayside ages ago, everyone unwilling to project their irritability on anyone else. The saving grace is that it is a mild day, bright sun, but not as blinding as before.

Mulan, closest to him, stops, sword sheathed, but prepared to draw it at any second should he try to run off or anything else monumentally foolish. Followed by Aurora, she trudges back to where Snow White and Emma have been hanging back. They form something akin to a huddle, their voices hushed. He's sure he'll hear about whatever conclusion they all draw together in a few moments. Meanwhile, he brings his head down to his restrained wrists to scratch his ear.

"You're the only one with a bow," he catches Mulan arguing. Ah. Attempt to tire him out for an hour only to shoot him here?

"She is _not_ going to stay alone with..."

"Forgive me, but you're not as familiar with the forest as you used to be and Aurora will not be leaving my sight," Mulan says. Splitting up, perchance? He counts the scenarios for this, eliminating everything but a need to find food or drink as there is too much daylight left to camp for the night.

"I'm not exactly helpless," Emma argues back.

"We've established guns don't work on ogres," Snow White says.

"No, but I bet they work on bunny rabbits just fine. Just go ahead. Bring back something delicious."

Food. Killian refuses to hope they will share anything they happen to kill with him.

"Here, you could replenish our water while we're gone," Mulan suggests, with a little less abrasiveness than usual, he notes. "There's a spring a half mile or so that way. You could take him and we would meet back here."

"It could take hours to find anything! Deer aren't out at this time of day and you can't split a squirrel five ways!" Snow White protests, and the remark about does him in. He stifles his laughter with a smirk. Oh, if he weren't bound it would be amusing—a mother not wanting to leave the daughter that's the same age as she is just to go bring back a tiny morsel that wouldn't be worth the trouble of roasting.

"We'll make it an hour, okay? You don't find anything, you come back here and we try later on."

This seems to work, Aurora hitching up her skirts and running up to Mulan while Snow White gazes right into Emma, like she'll never see her again. There isn't much affection other than a squeezing of hands, but they watch each other go. A bottle in each hand, Emma turns back and approaches him.

"So when's the last time Cora fed you?" she asks, gesturing for him to follow her in the direction of the spring.

"It's hard to say, but I fancy you'll have to ask her how she does it since I won't be able to feed myself," he says, holding up his wrists for effect. The spring babbles along in a clearing, a gathering place for a few birds. She takes the cork out of the first bottle and holds it under some of the rushing water. It does look appealing, he has to admit. "A sip?"

Rolling her eyes, she holds the bottle out to him, allowing him to take the neck in his mouth and tilt his head up. Warm, but clean and nevertheless refreshing. She's waiting for it back to fill it again, close enough that he spies the pendants around her neck, a silver circular one and the other with a small swan on it, wings out like it just landed on the water. A few tiny links of a chain connect it to the necklace.

"Family crest?" he tries, put out when she covers the swan with her fingers for a brief second.

"No, it's my name," she says, twisting her body back to the spring. "Emma Swan."

He's already mouthed her name once, just to see how it rolls off the tongue, so now he has to tell himself there is no reason to do it again even though it sounds a little different now than it did before.

"Let's get back to where we're supposed to meet up and wait there," Emma Swan says after filling up the second bottle. "I bet ogres can hear the water."

"You can tell me all about Storybrooke while we wait, as per our deal."

"Seriously?"

"Well, I did offer to be your guide, which would have required quite an exorbitant amount of talking to you about here and where we have to go." He grins at her head angling, elongating her neck just like a swan, her shoulders tensing up like ruffled feathers. It doesn't take long to walk back to the designated chunk of land, especially at her pace, but then it stands to reason the others will take longer to come back. She leans against one of the tree trunks and folds her arms.

"Our deal is we help each other get there."

"And filling me in on its little nuances would be helpful," he says. "Oh, come now, I've been a good captive, haven't I?"

Pursing her lips, she smirks at him. Emma. Emma Swan. He mirrors her stance and waits for whatever will come out of that mouth.

"Storybrooke," she says, setting her jaw. "Storybrooke is a rundown, huge city where a colorful gallery of rogues think they have the run of the streets, which is kind of sad since it used to be a city full of art and other good things. The high crime rate has overwhelmed the local law enforcement, but there is one man who stands between the innocent and the dangerous. He's our Caped Crusader, our Dark Knight...the Batman."

Well, if anyone can spout rubbish in a deadpan tone, it's Emma Swan.

"That sounds slightly far-fetched..."

"It is." She sighs, at herself, scoffing at her attempt at a joke. Her boot wafts through the grass near the tree root and she watches it. There's an odd sort of frown she makes, when she debates with herself whether or not she should say something. "So Captain Hook..."

"Yes, love?"

"We're not going to run into Peter Pan or anybody out here, are we?"

"I hope not."

* * *

The beanstalk extends through the clouds, all of them taken aback by the sheer size of it. It's a gnarled monstrosity, centered in a yellowed field. Killian wonders if it had somehow sucked all the nutrients out of the soil at one time, which would explain its gargantuan proportions. It looks thorny, slick and sappy. It goes too high for one's eyes to follow it all the way without tipping over backwards. Mulan may not have been too off the mark in stating it's reminiscent of death; however, to paraphrase Snow White, that isn't an "encouraging" train of thought.

"Well, your compass awaits. Shall we?" Eager to gain some sort of footing within this group, he leads the way.

"Wait...if these beans create...portals..." Struggling to wrap her head around it as anyone from a Land Without Magic might, he smiles at what he's sure will be an insightful...however, wrong...conclusion Emma is about to make. "Why not just pick one and go home? Why the compass?"

"Because there aren't anymore beans. Whatever story you think you know, my dear, is most certainly wrong."

"There was a guy named Jack, and a cow, and something about an evil giant with a treasure, and a golden goose...or a harp."

What...he can't...he has no idea where to even begin to explain just how wrong that all is.

"Sounds like a lovely tale," he says with a smile. "But the truth is a little bit more gruesome. The giants grew the beans, but, rather than use them for good, they used them to plunder all the lands. Jack was a man who fought a terrible war, defeating all but one of the evil giants." Snow White nods at Emma, and judging by the way they linger around each other, that should convince her he's not spinning his own tale just for her amusement. "The beans were destroyed by the giants as they died. If they couldn't have their magic, then nobody could. Very bad form."

"Evil giants...who made magic portal beans? Why doesn't anyone just go up and grow some more?"

Killian wonders if this is how she is all the time, so skeptical about everything.

"Because one giant survived, the strongest and most terrible of them all. And we'll have to get past him to..."

"The magic compass," Snow concludes, her arm falling to her side, looking ready to go off into a corner and let out some very choice words.

"Indeed," he says. "The treasure remains, and amongst it is the compass. Now it will guide us to your land. Cora has the means to open a portal with the wardrobe ashes, but she can't find your land without the compass." Why, why are they all looking at each other? What has he said? He's losing them, he thinks. Best pare it down to the point. "Once we get it, steal the ashes from her, we're on our way."

"How do we know you're not just using us to get the compass for Cora?" Mulan asks. A valid question. Even he can see that.

"Because you four are far safer company." Because he doesn't need to worry about one of them taking his heart every time they interact, he wants to say. "All I need is a ride back. I'll swear allegiance to whomever gets me there first."

Emma is the first to move, eying him, eying the beanstalk. He half expects her to claw right into it.

"Then we better start climbing," she finally says.

"Right, so...I failed to mention that the giant enchanted the beanstalk to repel intruders."

"All right, so how do we get up there?" She loved that bit of bad news and she'll probably love this one too, he thinks, knowing how her patience hangs by a thread at this point. He hopes she'll be the one to climb it with him. Two desperate souls off on an adventure together...shouldn't sound like as much fun as it does.

"I've got a counter spell from Cora, if you'd be so kind." Snow walks over, looking truly murderous. This is why he hates to be the bearer of bad news. It's not his fault the giant knows enough to keep his treasure secure. That's the nature of the beast, isn't it? Find treasure and then do whatever it takes to keep it? Instantly she's the one he would pick last if given the choice. Married. Grandson. Potentially silent and lethal the entire course of the climb. He can't resist acknowledging her ire.

"Thank you, milady," he says with a wink. He doesn't bother flicking his wrists around once he's free. Just loose and not pressed against each other is enough. It feels too wonderful to throw off that bloody smock, too. He pulls the cuff out of his satchel and straps it on.

"I've got one more of these," he says, tapping the cuff with his stump. "Cora was to accompany me. So...which one of you four lovelies shall take her place, hmm?" Well don't all jump at once. "Go on, fight it out. Don't be afraid to, you know, really get into it!"

Not every day a man gets to watch four gorgeous women decide which one of them will spend some time with him. He'd take that over blacksmith work any day.

They don't bother to lower their voices, nor even huddle up. Emma isn't even with them. The beanstalk seems to have captured all her attention. She doesn't bat an eye when Mulan moves past her to Snow.

"With all due respect, I'm the best equipped to go. How many wars have you been through?"

"My share!" Snow retorts with her hands on her hips. Perhaps Mulan is actually his least favorite choice. Both competent, he can tell, but the princess seems more willing to listen to reason and experience.

"It should be me," Aurora says. No, no, right there is his least favorite choice. With her along it should take, oh, about several decades to snag the compass.

"You? You haven't fought in a battle."

"This is about us getting home to our loved ones," Snow argues. "Why would you-"

"Because I have no loved ones," she says. Best stop listening, mate. He busies himself by tracing the stitching on his sleeve, refusing to relate to any of them. "If I fail you can still go on."

"It's me. I'm going, and I'm not going to fail." Emma finally turns, mind made up after surveying her surroundings, he gathers.

"You're new here," Snow counters.

"It's about getting back to Henry. I don't care what I have to face." Henry. That's right, she's a mother, shares the child with Regina. Had Cora not said anything, the look of utter resignation on Snow's face would give it away, most likely knowing not to come between a mother and her child.

"You're not going to argue with me?" she asks her.

"Would it do any good?" She already knows the answer. Emma Swan is climbing up the beanstalk with him. All this talk of least favorite choices flies clean out of his head. It truly will be two desperate souls on an adventure, both of them risking life and limb in the name of love, albeit in different ways. Failure is an impossibility. Once they put on the cuffs, they'll start the climb, and then the real fun will begin.

"Anything in that bag that's going to help me with a giant?" she asks Mulan.

"Or Hook?"

"Hey!" Honestly, Mulan. He had just been standing here, hadn't he? Moving away from the others, he can no longer hear what they're saying, only seeing her hand Emma a white bag, small enough for her to grip, but still looking like it packs some weight. Oh well, he thinks, glancing up at the beanstalk. It will be nightfall by the time they reach the top. If the timing worked out, they could enter the giant's lair just when he decided to call it a night and retire, affording them ample time to do the necessary searching since he's betting the compass will not just be lying around waiting for raiders.

"Ladies," he calls. It has to be now. "In this world, we are slaves to time, and ours is running out. In other words, tick tock."

Emma ties the bag to her jacket and marches over to him, sleeve pulled down and waiting for the cuff. Emma Swan is climbing the beanstalk with him. A grin spreads across his face.

"I was hoping it'd be you."

"Just get on with it."

"Put your hand right here." He takes it and positions it onto his shoulder, fingertips caressing her knuckles. He taps her hand, positive reinforcement for leaving it there. "That's a good girl." He won't flatter himself and call it shyness—the way she tucks her head in and averts his gaze, more scandalized than anything else. Last he knew, tapping her hand didn't equal being caught in a compromising position with her. Unable to hold it in, he lets out a laugh as he slips the cuff over her wrist. "This will allow you to climb. There are other dangers." Taking pity on her, he lets go of her. "Thankfully you've got me to protect you."

He holds up his shorter arm and points to it with the other one. It's a incredulous smirk that answers him.

"Well I can't climb one-handed, can I?" Mercifully, Emma is also beginning to see that time is of the essence and, with only a little bit of defeat on her face, she produces his hook out of the satchel.

"Don't think I'm taking my eyes off you for a second," she warns.

"I would despair if you did," he says, screwing the hook back in its rightful place. She lets the satchel droop over it, weighing down his arm, but it's no matter now, not when they're so close to the compass.

"Let's go," she says, so he lifts the strap up and over his shoulder instead, making sure she has the bag Mulan gave her. Thinking the same thing, she tosses it into the satchel. Shouldn't be too difficult, he thinks, scanning the base of the beanstalk for foot holes. It's really a series of vines entwined around each other, and not as sappy as he feared it might be. The way the coils twist and topple over each other provides more than enough notches for feet to burrow into. Not too different from the rigging of the Jolly Roger, he thinks, taking a small jump into the stalk and starting the climb.


	4. Open Books

**A/N: I have been asked if there will be flashbacks in this fic. Not a whole lot and I doubt I'll do any of the ones the show does as my focus is on the present-time plot. Again, I do not own the show. Thank you to all who have reviewed!**

* * *

He establishes a pattern, grabbing hold of a creaky vine, finding footing, unleashing a few huffs of exertion. Only the slow movement of the sun gives any clues to how long they've been at this, two or three hours being his estimate. The air doesn't thin out around the beanstalk, a blessing. Really, up in the clear sky, blood rushing through his shoulders and legs, it truly is like climbing the rigging of the ship. There may not be as much salt in the air or the varying textures of the waves below them...anything from a thick, rolling blue blanket to a polished-tin surface meant to reflect the sunlight...but it's energizing rather than draining.

He checks back on Emma, a couple of steps behind him, lips tight in and tucked into her mouth, brow furrowed in concentration. Stopping, he stretches one leg out, then the other, waiting for her, thankful he hasn't cramped up. A quick glance up gives him an idea they're only a little over halfway. Could be a full day's journey, he thinks, laughing off such a distasteful notion, imagining his arms falling off after such a feat, one last _thwack _of his hook into the vines before the entire arm plummets to the ground.

It might be a good time to propose a rest, but he hates to break whatever she's doing at the moment. Her arms locked out, she stares down towards the base with a smile made of adrenaline, not enough to call giddy, but that is delight he sees. In the Land Without Magic, maybe there is no way to do something like this since she looks like she can't believe it herself. He wishes he could read every thought just now, maybe find one considering waving down to the others just to see if her mother could see far enough to wave back.

It crosses his mind after about another half hour that she could be purposely staying behind him, feeling safer that way, since apparently throwing her down to her death is advantageous to him, in her mind. He hasn't heard anything out of her apart from a few shallow breaths here and there and some humming, songs he doesn't know. Standing straight out again so he can stretch his legs, he waits.

"First beanstalk?" he asks. She squints up, startled at the break of the quiet. "Well, you never forget your first." Nothing. "You know, most men would take your silence as off-putting, but I love a challenge."

"I'm concentrating," she says, inhaling and catching up to him so they're side by side. Ironic someone who can detect lies is such a terrible liar herself.

"No, you're afraid. Afraid to talk, to reveal yourself. Trust me. Things'll be a lot smoother if you do." He can't imagine how quickly the time would have gone by had they chatted this entire time. Not about anything significant or life-altering, but some conversation would have been nice.

"You should be used to people not trusting you."

"Ah, the pirate thing." Shots fired! And right across his bow, too. Best return fire. "Well, I don't need you to share. You're something of an open book."

"Am I?" she tests him, stopping, fuming, offended.

"Quite," he says. "Let's see...you volunteered to come up here because you were the most motivated. You need to get back to a child."

"That's not perception. That's eavesdropping."

"Ah, but you don't want to abandon him the way you were abandoned." It's out of his mouth before he can digest it. It all makes sense, the fearless and yet fearful way she takes everything in, the loving but still-unnatural way she is with her mother... It hits her, shuts her down for a brief second.

She whispers, a nigh-inaudible, incoherent phrase in hopes of making him second-guess himself. Unfortunately for her, that just reaffirms it.

"Like I said, open book."

"How would you know that?" The anger transfers from him to herself, for displaying some sort of tell like in cards.

"I spent many years in Neverland—home of the Lost Boys. They all share the same look in their eyes...the look you get when you've been left alone."

"Yeah, well, my world ain't Neverland," she says, turning away from him, eyes on the rest of the beanstalk above them. But he's not ready to resume the climb yet.

"An orphan's an orphan," he says. This sends her lurching upward, climbing at a much faster speed than she was before. He should let it go. It's ungentlemanly to pry, but...

"Love's been all too rare in your life, hasn't it?" She stops and looks right at him with a twinge of fear. "Have you ever even been in love?"

"No," she huffs. "I have never been in love."

Horrible liar.

* * *

He pivots so his heels balance on a vine. If he lets his head fall back just like this, he can pretend he's resting. His upper body rests as best it can as the muscles still have to be tightly pressed against the beanstalk so as not to fall. There can't be much left, but he broke a sweat ages ago and must catch his breath. It might have been for the best they hadn't talked much on the way up—more expelled energy that way, rendering them that much more winded. And yet he wants to know more about Storybrooke, more about her, in spite of the fact he crossed the line earlier with the inquiries into her past.

"Smaller beanstalks in your land, I take it?" he tries after she's succeeded in mirroring his "resting" stance.

"I had never even seen a beanstalk until today." She looks down and grimaces. "We left in too much of a hurry. Would have made sense to bring the water with us. You okay?" She brings her hand up to swat some hair out of her face, exposing a little flower tattoo on the inside of her wrist along with some scars. A six-petaled thing, no color—intriguing in its simplicity. Just when he'd pegged her as not a flowery woman in the least.

"I asked if you were okay," she says, loudly.

"Marvelous, love. Shall we continue? You could hum again all the way to the top if you want. There's not much more and I won't object to a little background noise."

* * *

The last fifteen or so minutes sucks him dry in the way of energy. Perhaps the air is finally thinning. Perhaps he has a literal threshold of strain tolerance. The notches between the vines have diminished, making it harder to securely wedge his feet in anywhere. The bloody giant had better be asleep for he doesn't believe he can control his breathing any time soon, and from the sounds of it, Emma is in the same condition.

A bit dazed, he steps onto brick, actual brick, and hoists himself up onto a flat surface. Flexing his fingers, it's as if he's forgotten what having them in a relaxed position feels like. Emma grunts and snatches her hand out of a few vines before leaping off of the thing as well. Neither of them move anything except their eyes, finding themselves centered in a bricked courtyard of some sort, rubble and smashed stone all around.

"What happened here?" she asks after a few breaths.

"It's where the final battle was." Oh, yes the bloody giant had damned better be asleep. His eyes wander, scanning, fearing something will pop out and step on them...but then he notices her hand, a deep gash right at the base of her palm. No wonder she'd pulled her hand back from the vines like they'd been a boiling cauldron. "Give me your hand."

"What?"

"Your hand—it's cut. Let me help you."

"No, no, it's fine..." she trails off, flailing her hand anywhere but where his is. The joke is on her, however, since his hook reaches her without any trouble.

"No, it's not," he says, and if he sounds a little triumphant while doing so, then so be it.

"So now you're going to be a gentleman?"

"Giants can smell blood," he whispers, leaning in. That's the rumor anyway. "And I'm always a gentleman."

She rolls her eyes, but in a resigned manner while he uncorks his flask with his mouth. He'd been tempted more than a few times during the climb to use it to hydrate, but one can't help but feel that ransacking a giant's lair is a task best done sober. Besides, then there would be nothing to clean her cut with, which he knew from multiple cuts and scrapes on his own body would be a stinging experience. So without drawing things out, he pours the rum right over her hand.

"What the hell is that?" she screeches.

"It's rum, bloody waste of it," he mumbles, looking at the gash. Longer than he anticipated, it's going to need covering up. She holds still long enough for him to reach around and remove his scarf. He can feel her eyes on him, sizing him up once again as he begins wrapping it around her hand, slowly since he only has one hand to work with. Her stare burns too much right now, so he keeps his eyes on his work.

"Now here's the plan..." Although it's more a way to focus on something else. "We wait for the giant to fall asleep. And when he does, we'll sneak past him into his cave. It's where the treasures are." He'll have to knot it off with his mouth. With a will of their own, his eyes dart up to look at her...oh, gods, what a mistake. "Where the compass lies," he adds, noticing she hasn't blinked. He doesn't even want to blink himself. She's transfixed on him, what he's doing, and, bloody hell, if that's not a mesmerizing sight all on its own.

"And then?" she asks, her voice lower, so he must match it.

"And then we run like hell."

"I don't have time for a giant to fall asleep." She says it like she's just waking up. "The powder Mulan gave us—we need to use it. Got to knock him out."

Ah, poppy powder. That's what's in the bag. But...

"Well, that's riskier."

"Than waiting for a giant to fall asleep when we need him to?" she counters. Now everything he knows about giants begins to sound like conjecture. Had he read somewhere they sleep at night? If not, what if they are nocturnal? Assume another being's schedule matches your own seems awfully bigoted now that he thinks about it. And a poppy-induced sleep would be much deeper than a natural one, especially if giants are light sleepers...

Emma's waiting for a response.

"Point taken. Ooh, you're a tough lass." And they'll succeed thanks to her. Maybe the few drops of rum left in the flask will serve as a toast on the climb down. Yes, there is no doubt she's an orphan, or has been an orphan, the way her eyelashes flutter when she's complimented, a dismissive shrug and eye roll following. He reaches into the satchel for the bag, the secret weapon. "You'd make one hell of a pirate."

"Who's Milah? On the tattoo?"

Shit. Milah. Oh _shit_. He casts his eyes down at the ground. How long has it been since he gave her any thought? A day? Milah, whose pillow he sleeps on, whose sketchbooks he still has in his desk? Fun, mate? Avenging her death is fun now? Seven years of happiness and being loved now forgotten? Summoning up an image of her, he makes his way toward the lair.

"Someone from long ago."

"Where is she?"

"She's gone." Lessons learned—there is a reason people recoil when others pry into their pasts, and, he should only have to tell himself this once, and he will, Emma Swan is an accomplice at best, a distraction at the worst.

"Gold," she mutters. "Rumpelstiltskin." That name on her lips stops him. This Storybrooke will remain a mystery to him for now, he decides. He can't stomach the idea that the Land Without Magic consists of everyone hearing the Dark One's words and not his own. "He took more than your hand from you, didn't he? That's why you want to kill him."

There is no condemnation in her tone, no judgment of any kind, but there is most definitely a reason people recoil when others pry into their pasts...so he will do it one more time to her.

"For someone who's never been in love, you're quite perceptive, aren't you?"

No, he refuses to believe he's hurt her. It was meant to quiet her, nothing more, and yet her eyes look a little glassier than they've been before, willing tears to not fall. He shakes his head slightly. It's not him; it's some memory she's watching play out all over again with someone who has indeed hurt her. Thinking of Milah pains him sometimes, the pointless arguments, the things they never did, but if ever given the opportunity to deny her...laughable, and yet she had denied it only a few minutes ago. You have been alone too long, haven't you, Emma Swan?

"Maybe I was. Once," she says, looking small for the first time. Truce then, he promises her in his mind.

"All right. You want to knock him out. I'll create a diversion somehow..." he trails off, wondering. This seems to snap her out of it, her mind back in the present.

"So how tall are these guys?" she asks, turning around and taking a few steps back to take a good look at the gigantic opening that must serve as a doorway. There are a few statues right beside it...she groans at the same time he sees it. "Yay, more climbing."

The statue has a rough texture, the nubs here and there meant to be beading on the uniform make it easier than the beanstalk. Holding up his arms, hoping he won't have to catch her if she slips, he still searches for he's not sure what. A long strip of white catches his eye, a bone. It could be a thigh bone, he supposes, judging by the shape, but it comes up above his waist like a staff. A thigh bone of what?

"What is that from?" she calls down, strained.

"No idea."

She climbs the statue's back side, perching on its shoulder in a crouched position. He can barely see her, just her hair, but it doesn't matter how visible she is, does it? Not if she throws the powder at the right time?

"You ready?" he shouts up to her, still hoping the giant is already asleep.

"Yeah!"

Tightening his grip on the bone, he runs over to a shield, a giant's shield, and bangs the bone into it over and over again. His ears ring at the sound, but he continues. Nothing, nothing but an eerie calm, as if the silence had grown even quieter. He considers telling Emma to go ahead and come down, that they can take their chances and count their blessings this giant is an early-to-bed type. If they're quiet, he might blame whatever racket pulled him from his sleep on mice.

A thunderous rumbling nearly has him thudding to the ground. Emma's hair jerks around in such a way he knows she was close to falling. More of her comes into view, her boots and jacket...she's shuffled to the front of the statue just to hold on. The giant will be sure to see her. His footsteps boom ever closer.

He's...well, he's bigger than Killian expected. Bloody hell, he'd had to duck his head under the entrance just to step out here. Emma's not even high enough up to reach his neck. And if the giant keeps peering the way he is in search for the source of the ruckus...

"Hey! You big git!" A gained compass or stomped into pirate mash...at least it will be a quick way to go. The giant glares at him, terrifying just from the size of it, his snorts and grunts piercing. "Yeah, you! You want to kill a human? Huh, you want to kill a human?" He side-steps away from the shield, in her direction. The giant should hunch just a little to be able to keep track of him. He increases his stride. "Well, I'm the worst human around! Come on! Come on then! Come on then!" That's right...get good and angry, he wills him. Being crushed will be much quicker than picked up and boiled in a stew. Inhaling, he runs across the giant's shoe.

Darting to the base of the statue, he clenches his teeth and closes his eyes, feeling the giant's face lowering. His footsteps continue...but more erratically. Years and years of helping drunken sailors back to their bunks tells him it's the staggering dance. Breaking into a sprint, he braces himself against the wall just as the giant slumps to the ground. It's the most violent rumble yet.

He approaches in spite of the thud still echoing in his ears. Picking the bone up one more time, he pokes the enormous cheek, sprinkled in grayish-white powder.

"Hook? Hook?" he hears. He backs up and sees her standing alongside the statue's head.

"He's out cold," is all he can say, looking up at her. This is happening. It's been, well, a long streak indeed of not catching any breaks and yet this is happening. "I don't mean to upset you, Emma, but I think we make quite the team."

Emma rolls her eyes. A crooked smile burgeons across her face. It's the first time he's said her name aloud, his accomplice, and the compass awaits.

"Let's go steal a compass," she says before starting her descent.


	5. Shackles and Walls

Pirate paradise, Killian thinks, unable to keep his eyes on one thing for too long. Everywhere mounds and mounds of treasures and oddities just lay piled up on top of each other. Stacks of coins taller than himself and chests larger than the Jolly Roger surround them. The ceiling is so high it echoes even their footsteps. There would have been no way to keep quiet enough to avoid waking a giant.

Nothing he'd ever done at sea, legitimately or otherwise, would have led to him accumulating this much in a year, let alone a night. Certainly he could take a moment to appreciate that. These giants liked the shiny, he'd give them that.

"They hoarded all of their greatest stolen treasures in here. Piles of jewel and every room filled with coins." At last he spies something small enough for him to pick up, although that decidedly does not diminish its value. Oh, he remembers times when a salary was just a salary, a bonus to being able to sail, but then when that life ended, gold and all other precious stones and metals meant food, meant supplies, meant a night of fun out with the crew. Sifting the coin between his fingers, taking in the old familiar scent, scores of adventures returned to him.

"Let's get to it. The compass!"

She's new to this land, so he'll forgive her for separating him from the past.

"What's your rush?"

From the corner of his eye, he sees the most annoyed look on Emma that he's seen yet, bordering on fury.

"How long do you think magic knockout powder lasts?" she tries.

"I've no clue."

"That's my rush."

He taps the coin a few times. Milah, stupid, he thinks. Revenge. All else is meaningless.

"Too right, lass." Treasure is a distraction. Why must everything need to consciously be a distraction all of a sudden? The quest for the compass should be adventure enough. And it is. He can't wait to see it, climb down, and journey onward.

"Come," he says, head firmly in the game now. "Everything we need is right in front of us."

The treasure room expands, although the ceiling stays the same height. The sheer amount of candles reflect off of all the gold, bathing everything in a day-rivaling brightness. No organization to any of it, he notes, slowing his pace in hopes of zeroing in on the compass. Everything looks like it was just thrown in and forgotten about.

"They kill all the giant housekeepers, too? How are we going to find a compass in this mess?"

"By looking," he says. And "mess" is a little harsh, isn't it? It is treasure, after all. "Start searching. I wonder how much treasure we could carry down the beanstalk." And that there is what Emma Swan looks like exasperated. "In addition to the compass, of course."

A skeleton obstructs his path. Well, it was only a matter of time before they ran into one of those. It honestly surprises him there aren't more lying about.

"What the hell..."

"That..." He sees the name etched into the sword. "...would be Jack."

"As in Jack..."

"The giant killer," he says with a shrug. Her idea of what had happened with the giants had been comical, childlike, even, but he fails to understand why she's so startled. Jack had been one of the few elements she'd gotten right.

"That toothpick?"

Perhaps it should be his turn to state an out-loud reminder they have little time for dawdling.

"Packs quite a wallop. You'd be surprised."

He takes a few steps backward, and before he knows it, she's hurling her arms out and shouting incoherent "whoas" before pulling him to her. Well, maybe a little bit of time for dawdling... His hook wraps around her and pulls her closer. Gods, she's lovely, the compass can't be far...knocking out a giant together certainly means they've earned some time for pleasure.

"It's about bloody time." He smiles, holding her with his complete arm, wants to feel the small of her back on his hand. His heart races, heat soaring through him at a feverish pace. They have to kiss before he starts shaking.

It's over before it could ever start, Emma wiggling out of his arms, breathing like they'd actually done something.

"It's a trip wire," she breathes. Gods, panting? She looks more beautiful now, a little flustered and winded, than she did when she touched him. Sure enough, a cage hangs above them, attached to the wire. "Quite the security system."

Oh, love, a simple "look out" would have accomplished the same thing, he thinks about saying, but he gazes at her brow instead, crinkled, like she has to believe her words. Sure she won't be so forward again any time soon, he calms down.

"Well, that's a plausible excuse for grabbing me," he tries to say with a laugh, but finds himself playing with her hair instead. Blonde hair typically doesn't do much for him, not that he has a type, but it's hard to not touch it right now, not touch her. "But next time, don't stand on ceremony." She tilts her head, pulling her hair away from him.

"Let's just get the compass and go home," she says...still breathing like they just stepped off the beanstalk. He rolls his tongue into his cheek and stares at her, mirroring her oh-so-neutral expression. All right, he thinks. I suppose we do need to be truthful when we tell your mother you behaved yourself up here. With his eyes, he gestures towards the far side of the room.

"After you." Collected now. Maybe. He raises an eyebrow at her, tightening his mouth so as not to grin. She means it now; whatever had her breathing like a wanton vixen has been sealed up and admonished for coming out to play.

* * *

"How much time has gone by?" he asks, knowing she won't have the answer. One would think among all the valuable clutter there would be a clock, but no.

"I don't know, thirty minutes, maybe? Forty-five minutes?"

Her previous silence after the trip wire incident along with the blatant lack of compass dulls the enthusiasm he felt on his climb up just slightly. If the giants were all killed but one and, to the best of his knowledge, didn't travel much anymore, then there was no need for the compass to be hidden. It should be stuck in here somewhere. The image of this room acting as a sort of junk drawer boggles his mind.

"So it's just...in here somewhere?" Emma's arms come up and then plop down at her sides.

"Allegedly." He won't entertain the horrid thought that the compass being here is nothing but a myth because that would lead to the compass itself being a myth and then there is no way he knows of to ever get to the Land Without Magic. That would be terrible and ergo, the compass has to be here somewhere. There is a cage of some sort, tall enough for an ostrich, with a flat top. If he could just stand on that, he could get a much better view of the area.

"Give me a boost, would you, love?"

"So I can't see what you're pocketing? No way. You give me a boost," she says, sauntering over with a knowing look. Bollocks to that. The coins distracting him had been at least thirty minutes ago and _she _had grabbed _him_, not the other way around.

"Try something new, darling. It's called trust." Insulting, really. He has a mind to let her carry the compass down as a goodwill gesture, a trust exercise. She'd probably insist on it anyway. Well, that's that then, he decides. She will carry it down and he will not complain or ask to hold it at any time. Because he does not like this look she's giving him, that she almost wants him to be untrustworthy, like he's destroying some plan or mindset she's in for how this whole mission is supposed to go.

"We'll do it side by side," she decides. "And fast. Who knows how long before the..."

A rumble disrupts her, coins rattling into each other. The ground vibrates with more force than before...and it is relentless. Their heads jerk to the direction of the doorway.

"Someone's up," he mutters. His eyes snap shut. Maybe the giant will bypass this room, will just walk right past it and search the rest of the place for human pests. No suck luck. The door begins to swing open. Coins scatter all over the floor, treasure spilling into treasure. He throws his arm out, but whether it is to balance himself or keep Emma's head from colliding with the cage, he's not sure.

"Quickly. Get under something," he says. He starts for the back of the room, Emma right behind him. They could weave back outside and then sneak back in while he searches the grounds for them, for it's too late to assume he'll give up after a few minutes and turn in for the night, and he is not climbing down the beanstalk without the compass. The giant races toward them, an enormous epitome of rage. He sees them. The running causes the whole building to shake, cracks of white appearing in the dark ceiling above. Rays of light. The whole ceiling will come down at them at this rate.

He can't dodge some of the falling pieces. His arm flies up to cover his head and some kind of miracle allows them to fall all around him, a few falling close enough to him that they wedge him in.

"Hook?"

He can't hear anymore. Crouching down, he tries to crawl around the boulders. Down on his elbows, he manages well enough until he can't fit his legs through the little aisle way. Stuck.

"Emma!" he hisses out. There's no hint indicating where she is, or if she's been caught. There's the sound of something falling, something heavy and metallic. The cage is the only thing he can think of large enough to create such a sound and he hopes, hopes, Emma's found a way to send it down on the giant. That has to be what just happened, he tells himself. There would be no need for the giant to use it on her. He rolls over onto his side and tries to slide out that way, but no luck. Never any luck.

"Hook?" he hears again. In the distance, he sees the giant just standing, looking away. But he focuses in on a chain dangling from Emma's hand. He's able to stick his hand out to her, feeling her help pull him. Laughing, he at last brings his knees closer to him and can kneel.

"You are bloody brilliant. Amazing! May I see it? The compass." She cringes just a little at the request, but he'll fix that once he shows her how fine he is with her carrying it down. She can even line up her three companions and set up shifts in which they all hide it from him for all he cares, as long as they have it. She adjusts the compass in her palm and holds it out to him.

"It's more beautiful than legend," he breathes, the corners of his mouth turning even more upward. It's real. They have it. It's theirs. She'll be hugging her child in no time and he...he is going to kiss her. Not here, not until they're outside, but he'll pick her up and swing her around and kiss her senseless for their troubles. His fingers inch out to touch it just when she rakes it back in. That's fine. More than fine. Just Emma being Emma.

"Come. Let's go." He extends his hand out to her, already tasting her lips, already feeling her hair between his fingers again.

The moment she clasps it, something is wrong. She's too afraid, her face not nearly as elated as it should be. Something cold accompanies it. He looks down at the same time she reels back, chains attached to him. He's shackled. He's shackled to the wall.

"What are you doing?" His brain sits empty, standing the only thing he can do. "What are you doing?"

She doesn't even know. She can scarcely talk. Her eyelashes flutter, a glimmer of guilt on her face the only indication she does know what she's doing, is in her right mind. If there is guilt, he can talk her out of it. He can reverse this somehow, somehow.

"Emma, look at me." Her shoulders heave as she does so, gritting her teeth at this. "Have I told you a lie? I brought you here. I risked my own safety to help you. The compass is in your hand. Why do this to me now?" Whatever he's said or done, he's sorry. A thousand times, he's sorry. They can climb down the beanstalk in silence for the entire duration and he won't complain. He's sorry he made her think of the love that had ended so badly for her, sorry for, for...anything she wants him to be sorry for, if she'll only erase this somehow, free him, an apology irrelevant. Her back straightens. She's recoiling, _recoiling, _at his words, at the truth. He hadn't thought of it before, had absolutely no reason to, but there had to have been endless opportunities for him to cheat her, to do something horrible to her and...

"I can't take a chance that I'm wrong about you," she says. There is nothing he can do with that. If she'd perceived some kind of treachery, maybe enough talking could have convinced her otherwise, but...she's leaving him, to die, because she does believe him? Bested. Damn it all, bested again and now he'll die for nothing. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? You're _sorry_?" His blood scorches everything under his skin, boiling at the very sight of her walking away from him. "I got you here! I got you the compass!"

"_I _got the compass."

He will find a way to free himself from this...so he can strangle her, so he can slide his fingers into her scalp so hard everything he knows—that he won't stop her from going home, that he wants her to be with her child—will seep into her mind somehow and convince her beyond any doubt she doesn't have to do this. She doesn't have to leave him here to...

"You're just going to leave me here to die? Have that beast eat me, crush my bones?" He's hot and cold at the same time, shaking, bloody shaking in front of her ever-blurring form. No, no, you will not panic, he commands himself. You will not panic and you most definitely will not faint, no matter what the numbness in your hand says.

"He is not a beast, and you're not going to die." Really, Swan? We're going to argue semantics at a time like this? "I just need a head start, that's all." She's really walking away this time, without even the decency to look back. All the rage in the world can't free him from the chain, and she would be done for if it did, one way or another.

"Swan! Swan!"


	6. Hardened Heart

The giant thuds toward him, robed and scowling. There is no way for Killian to stare up at him without feeling like a puppy or a kitten looking up at its master for the first time. Swallowing, he knows now is not the time to be the first to speak.

"Hi," the giant says, waving a massive hand. "Name's Anton."

"Killian," he responds after what feels like a lifetime, afraid even his name will spur the giant's wrath...although something about this giant screams childlike to him, and not in a destructive sort of way like he might just pick him up and proceed to play with him, defining play as pulling his arms and legs off and then hurling the remains into the wall... The giant, Anton, fumbles around with his robes, waves of crimson and brown, until he pinches something between his fingers.

"Kiwi?" Peering into an endless palm, he spots a tiny green fruit.

"Thank you." The journey up left him ravenous and fairly certain a giant would not bother with poisons, he pops the fruit into his mouth.

"So I guess I'm babysitting you now for the next ten hours," Anton says, controlling his voice so it doesn't boom across the whole place. Considerate fellow. "I don't entertain much."

"That was my first inkling."

"You must be hungry, and this is kind of a special occasion, you being my first guest and/or prisoner for a while. Thirsty? I've got some gin around here somewhere."

He likes this giant.

"You know, Anton, I could really use a drink about right now."

* * *

_The Jolly Roger docked a few villages over lest anyone in the village remember it. Killian would never admit to the ship that its reputation did not extend to the peasant towns, but there was always the possibility some sharp-eyed weaver or broom maker recognized it. They rented horses from the first farmer they saw for the rest of the way, his a dapple gray mare the farmer's wife doted on and had named Buttercup. Even with her displaying the attention span of a gnat, he refused to call her that. It drained the quest of its significance...quite possibly the most significant quest of his life. _

_ He keeps an eye on Milah the entire time, the horses cantering up to a bumpy cobblestone road full of wagons and carts, ramshackle buildings on either side without a parallel line to be seen. _

_ "Are you all right?" he asks her. She's worn the least conspicuous thing she has, a reddish riding habit with gold stripes on the sleeves, but once they move further from the inn and tavern towards the homes, people will stare. They wouldn't remember the Jolly Roger but they'll remember her. _

_ "Fine." Tucking her chin into her chest and inhaling—distinctly not-fine Milah. But she shoots him a smile in hopes of the pretense becoming truth. Tying off the horses, they continue on foot, lurking back in the alleyways._

_ As nervous as he is for her, his hands tremble. Baelfire had turned twelve last month. He knew since Milah lighted a candle for him every year on his birthday and sang a soft lullaby to herself in the privacy of their cabin. Not every boy had had to resort to some of the things Killian had done at twelve to survive, but twelve made for a good cabin boy position at the least and most children liked the sea. Most children don't run into their mothers after five years either, he thinks, holding his breath. Still, this is Milah's decision so he will follow her._

_ She stops and shuffles into a tree grove, so he follows, peering out at only a well. But then he sees what she sees—a boy in a tunic so dirty he can't tell if it was originally white or brown. Large, bright brown eyes, tousled brown hair...features the same shapes as his mother. Bae._

_ Milah brings her hands up to her nose and mouth, her face crumpling up and reddening. A passer-by might take the sounds she's trying so hard to muffle as exhales, but they're sobs. She folds her arms and withdraws into herself. _

_ "Milah?"_

_ "This was a mistake," she whispers. "We need to go. Now."_

_ Taking one last look back at the boy, he follows her back through the trees towards the center of the village. _

_ "Wait, wait. We need to talk about this." Running up in front of her, he holds her by the shoulders. "What happened? That was him, wasn't it?"_

_ "He's...we can't do this. He'll hate me." The tears fall freely now that she no longer cares who's around._

_ "His father probably told him you died and now he'll see you're alive. What child wouldn't want to see their mother standing right in front of them? Smiling?" He cups her chin and smiles at her, hoping she'll mirror it, but it's no use. Instead, she falls against his chest. Make this right, he orders himself, but few ideas come to mind. "You don't have to tell him you left him. A pirate could have easily kidnapped you and then you escaped and have been trying to get back to him all this time. I could just be some friendly rogue rushing to your aid." Sickened at how conniving that sounds, he cringes. If she agrees, he now has to lie to a child. If she dismisses it, then where are they? Where is she? Another year of promising herself she'd reunite with her son once he was old enough?_

_ "No. He and Rumple are all the other one has now," she whispers into his doublet. "If he won't hate me for leaving him, he'll hate me for leaving his father, and he'll hate you. He won't understand." She holds his face in her hands. _

_ "Milah, if you don't see him now and tell him you love him, then he will definitely not understand. At least this way you'll have done what you could and had the chance," he tries. Damn that coward husband of hers. It's his fault they're in this position. A beautiful, strong, talented woman like her made miserable by his selfishness. Even now freed from that confining life, he still makes her miserable. If it were only him, he would run back and whip up whatever story necessary to bring the boy back onto the ship with them, maybe even tell the father the truth, that the boy's mother just wants to spend some time with him, but it is Milah's decision, her heart breaking at just the presentation of this decision._

_ "We'll wait," she says after an eternity in his arms. "We'll wait until he's of age and living on his own. Maybe Rumple will be dead by then. Then we'll tell him."_

_ He kisses the top of her head and holds her a few minutes longer before they retrieve the horses and ride back empty-handed._

* * *

"Hey. Hey, wake up!"

Killian's back hits the floor, the chain jerking his arm.

"Sorry," Anton says. "Don't know my own strength. I was just trying to tap you. You've been asleep for a while."

Not sure he needs to apologize for dozing off, he uses his shoulder to rub his eyes and sits up, taking a knee. He'd dreamed, dreamed of the past. He hates dreaming.

"Is it time to go?" he yawns, not meaning to do so. "Beg your pardon there."

"Nah, don't worry about it. That climb probably wiped you out. Yeah, it's been ten hours. You can go. Hold still." With a tiny key pinched between his thumb and forefinger, he sticks it into the lock on the wall with the same dexterity regular-sized people must employ to fit thread through the eye of a needle. In seconds, he can wrench his hand from the shackles.

"Thank you." The giant squatting, he can see something hanging off his neck, something bean-shaped. "What's that? A magic bean?"

"Not anymore," he says. "Just a reminder of what could have been."

He cocks his head at that, the words hitting him hard. What could have been is him on his way to Storybrooke right this instant. There are tales of a lake, a lake that can bring back what has been lost, making what could have been a reality, so to speak. Cora has not said so in so many words, but the ashes from the wardrobe are worthless without a way to bring back what once was lost. If he can go without Cora, he'll take that opportunity, but...

"Anton, why not come to this new land with all of us, hmm? The Land Without Magic."

"I don't know," he sighs. "What's there?"

"I'm not exactly sure, but I'm certain it's better than malingering around here all alone. Think about it—a chance to start new and do whatever you want, or staying here, just surrounded by what could have been." Anton seems to consider this. Take that, Emma Swan. You still have to steal the ashes whilst I will be riding a giant to Lake Nostos.

"You could get us to a new land?"

"Well, not me personally. But I happen to know a very powerful witch with her heart set on being reunited with her daughter there. She has a plan for getting there, I'm sure of it."

"Says the 'worst human around,'" Anton huffs.

"You don't believe me?" He pouts.

"Not all of you are liars. Some of you seem to be decent people." He looks back out at a hole in the wall, one that wasn't there ten hours ago. "Tell you what. You find this witch and make sure her plan is in full swing and let me know." Smiling at him, he holds out his hand.

"I'll shake on that, definitely, Anton, but I need that in order for all of that to happen." He points to the bean. Come on, mate, he wills him. The past is in the past, is it not? Let's move on, move on in a new land together. More drinks to be had.

Anton removes the necklace just when Killian considered giving up on the matter.

"Here. Take it. Put in a good word for me."

Pocketing the bean, Killian grins at him. Perhaps luck and fate still want to be his friends, after all.

* * *

The climb down takes longer than the climb up, the silence emphasizing every ache on his body. He remembers chastising sailors back in his Navy days for returning after a few days' liberty with nothing in their pockets or purses. Strumpets in the towns, never far from the piers, sucked them drier than any succubus could. He let it slide more with a crew of pirates, but still found himself ushering a sailor here or there into his cabin for a word on self-control, on common sense, on thinking with only one's brain and no other body parts. He used animals as examples, taking a little bit of delight in frightening the men with his knowledge of certain female insects that ate the males after breeding. Beautiful creatures can be just as aggressive as repulsive creatures, and he's sure at least once he'd used swans as an example.

Truer words never spoken.

There's no need to hustle. That will only use up more energy, and she's ten hours ahead of him anyway. Likely Cora has conjured some scheme to keep them from the ashes, but that doesn't help him at the moment. And he'd been bloody fine with her carrying the compass all the way down... Shaking his head at himself, he keeps going.

He busies himself with what course of action to take when he's returned to the ground. Tracking the four as quickly as possible is his first option and possibly his only one. They will try to move quickly, but there are four of them, Cora wants them, and at least one of them is not used to hiking through the woods. Upon reaching them, he can either try to fight, in which case he will be outnumbered, or he can try reasoning again and maybe with Aurora's compassion and Snow White's levelheadedness, there won't be anymore "I'm betraying you because I trust you" incidents.

His second option is Cora. How he hopes he can avoid her. He thought there had been an imbalance of power before, had he? No compass, no knowledge of the opponents' whereabouts, no magic but a dried-up bean she won't be interested in until after the women have been disposed of—no leverage at all.

The sky darkens, the leaves on the treetops almost waiting for the rain. Wonderful, just wonderful, a slippery beanstalk that he's stupidly climbing down, alone, and lightning not out of the realm of possibility.

What had she expected him to do, tie her up and drag her around the treasure room while he searched on his own?

Fortunately, the rain, while relentless once it gets started, falls gently. It does give the beanstalk a slick quality, rendering a slower pace an inevitability, and the soreness he'd only begun to feel on the climb up is nigh-unbearable now, in his arms especially. Surely Anton would have said something had he been aware of an easier method. The fruit had placated his appetite, however, some bread afterward filling him up. See, mate, he teases himself. Could be worse. You could be hungry.

Perhaps if he _had _been the one to grab her, he could have understood some apprehension about continuing their partnership, but _she _had grabbed _him._

At last, he can let go and jump down to the ground, his legs once again thanking him for being able to straighten. He brushes some of the raindrops off his shirt, shaking his head just hard enough to prevent a few droplets from trickling down into his eyes. It feels nice now, neither warm nor cool. He wonders if it will be the death of him if he begins his pursuit in the forest without drying off somewhere.

"My dear Captain. It seems you've been on quite an adventure. The compass, please."

Survive the night. Survive the night, he tells himself. What kind of end is that, to have the compass usurped and then have his heart crushed?

He turns around, pretending to be taking in the misty beauty the rain has created, this yellow field in need of it.

"Yes, that, well..." Smile, not too much now. It has to be a petty inconvenience, not something worthy of a party. "Matters grew complicated. It's eluded me for the moment. The details of the affair are a bit of a bore." Gesturing like an idiot, he tries to ignore the way Cora tightens her grip on her parasol. Looking unflappable as always. Would they really have even made it to the top of the beanstalk had she gone?

"Really?" She bares her teeth like a fox discovering a chicken coop, too much of a lady to yell. Yet that, he thinks, makes her that much more formidable. "Stealing my protection spell and climbing the beanstalk without me might seem like a bore to you," she says, mocking his casual tone. "But to me, it's a betrayal."

Ah, yes, I've been betrayed. You've been betrayed. Everyone's been betrayed. Welcome to how it feels to be brought down a peg.

"I was going to bring it to you. Our agreement remains. We are going to Storybrooke, together. I'll get it back."

"I don't have time for your games. I've crossed through too many worlds to be brought short at the brink of success. Who was it who bested you?"

He expected this question.

"The Swan girl, Emma. Rest assured, it won't happen again." And it won't. She has no time to relish the taking of his heart. He would just be dead and already rotting otherwise. That means he can still track down Emma, explain the bean and...surely someone in that group will know what exactly needs to be done with it...and then they will leave. One can't betray Cora if one is not in the same realm as she, and one can't be bested again by Emma Swan if there is no need for her to best anyone.

"No, it won't," she laughs, a knowing mother's laugh, the kind right before the stare-down that will result in the child's smacked bottom. "You chose her and the consequences of that decision."

It clenches his hand into a fist, the desire to mock her condescension threatening to override his better judgment.

"Ooh," he huffs, eyebrows narrowing in an exaggerated way. "Are you going to kill me now? Go ahead. Try." Magic, he does not know how to do, but bluffing comes naturally to him. He's not the only one in a mocking mood, however, Cora simpering and rolling her shoulders. She smiles, not smirks, at him, and that terrifies him.

"So brave," she coos. "No, I'm not going to kill you. I have something far more satisfying in mind." Gods, she's been apart from her daughter too long. He sets his jaw at how she finds what everyone around her says so unreasonable and ignorant. So maternally put-upon. The smile fades. "I'm going to leave you here with your thirst for revenge unquenched while I complete our journey without you."

There's no chance of finding the others before Cora unleashes whatever powers she believes necessary on them. He can't forsake her as an option now. His lip twitches at the only weapon he has in his pitiful arsenal against this lady, this lonely, high-strung lady who, he assumes, is a widow.

"There's no need to be rash." Summon a smile. There you go. Saunter over to her, don't take your eyes off her—keep down any vomit threatening to come up. If he's had worse, he can't recall. Inches from her face, his gaze shifts from her eyes to her mouth. "We can discuss this." She has a daughter; she'll understand his meaning.

A straight face looks up at him.

"Your pretty face buys you a lot, but not my time. It's too valuable."

"I can do this. I can get it back. You need me." No, she doesn't, and he's always known it.

"No, I don't. You've had your chance. Now it's my turn to do this. The right way," she adds, turning and strolling away. He will not have two women walk away from him in the same day. It's too much now, after all that's happened. With a cry, he lunges for her, hook out, but she's gone in a puff of purple smoke.

* * *

A quick scrubbing and some fresh meat and water revive his body, just not his spirits. He had returned to the fort, fully knowing charging into the forest dehydrated and drenched was just asking for death. It didn't matter if Cora saw him here or not. He is as good as dead to her for now. The idea to travel alone to Lake Nostos crosses his mind more than once. He'll need to find wherever Lancelot kept the maps and charts of the land to be able to determine its precise location. A general sense of where it is will eat up time and resources.

About ready, just maybe some extra flint should he need to build a fire, he hears footsteps. Huddling into himself behind one of the tents, he can't resist poking his head out just a tad. Cora, carrying a tray, makes her way toward the pit, taking the route those who had believed they guarded her took. He raises an eyebrow, deciding some things are worth a delay.

Following her, he hangs back when she maneuvers the door and the tray at the same time. If he had any kind of magic, he thinks, that's all he would use it for, just the mundane, domestic little things like propping open doors, uncorking bottles without his hook or his mouth...make cake if he felt ambitious.

"I thought you might be hungry. I hope you enjoy stew."

A prisoner already. Good for her.

"I enjoy anything that masks the bitter aftertaste of poison," Aurora haughtily replies, much to his surprise. No, not that she's been captured. Unavoidable, that. He brightens a little as he hears Cora laugh.

"Plucky. I like that."

"You might as well go," Aurora snaps at her. "I'm not going to tell you anything."

"Oh, I know, that's all right. You've nothing to tell. You weren't my target."

"The compass—sad you lost it?" If Cora had the compass, she would already be gone, nothing at all keeping her here.

"I suppose," Cora says, in the conversational mood, he supposes. He can visualize her stance and her expression all too well, grateful he's limited to their voices for now. "But now I have something to trade for it."

A hostage situation, always seemingly a simple solution, he thinks. But it will only for a stalemate, halting everything to a complete standstill for everyone. Emma will not trade the key to seeing her son again for Aurora, and yet she won't _not _make the trade, either. She refused to let him die, and seeing as how Aurora's most reprehensible crime most likely falls along the lines of snagging her dress enough times to slow them down, her survival is all but guaranteed.

"They'll never trade me for that," Aurora says. He's finally inclined to agree with her.

"You might be more valuable than you know."

"To who?" she snaps. "They _just _met me and they're trying to get back to their families. Do you really think they'll sacrifice that for a stranger?"

Had someone told him how the last day or so was going to go, he would have laughed in their face and dismissed them as falling-down inebriated—the beanstalk debacle and now inwardly cheering for a girl too polished and sweet to be of any use to anyone. He can't hear anything, no rebuttal from Cora? Cora stumped by a princess...three princesses and a warrior woman, actually, but they all deserve to go to Storybrooke for that.

"Your newfound companions? You may not know them, but I do. Snow and her daughter just can't help themselves. No matter the personal stakes, they won't let an innocent die." Her voice soft, how she still maintains that guise of matronly wisdom is beyond him.

"We shall see," he hears from Aurora in a tone that couldn't possibly be accompanied without a shrug.

"And what stakes do you have in their cause, Princess? It's not as though you'd travel back with them." There is a pause. "Oh...what a sweet, misguided notion. Did you really think you could have a life there? Find another prince? You've forgotten Philip already."

Philip...ah, the man Mulan rode out with not long ago to rescue Aurora in the first place. From Cora's tone, he guesses their latest separation wasn't due to some lovers' tiff.

"Philip is in my heart every moment of every day. If there was anything I could do to bring him back, I would."

He really does not want to be able to relate to her. He should back away and commence his journey, let them all battle it out until the Enchanted Forest is one giant wasteland, but the memory is too strong, the complete despair of watching a loved one die. But Aurora has erred and gave away more information than necessary, her innocence betraying her.

"Is that so? What if I told you that when a wraith consumes a soul, it merely travel to another realm?" Freezing, he realizes he nearly has his ear pressed against the outside. "But that soul could be brought back to this world? Show me a little courtesy, and I may explain how."

He fails to hear an acceptance or rejection, just a crash. The tray! Grinning, he waits.

"Oh! You stupid, ungrateful girl!" He'd give any amount of gold to be able to see Cora soaked in food, dress ruined, face contorted and flustered and completely lacking in the typical smugness.

"I'm not as stupid as you think, nor my loyalty so easily bought. You can bring me a hundred meals and make me a hundred promises, but I will never help you!"

A thud, quiet. She's paid for her spirit, spirit he gleefully just discovered she has, but she must still be alive, as dead set as Cora is on hostage negotiations. He hears footsteps again, some scuffling, too, so he rushes back to the nearest tent, scrambling to hide behind it. Emerging with the now-barren tray, shaking her head and even muttering a curse...Cora, you saucy viper...she disappears, leaving him with all this information. He should go, just go and not look back and take his chances with finding Storybrooke, the compass a moot point. However, he could track them down with Aurora, save her and present her to them, not as a trade, but a goodwill statement, earning...well, Snow and Mulan's cooperation, anyway.

Except that they're well ahead of you and nursing a princess along will only slow your pace more. He bites his lip. The birds in this corner of the land obey Cora and wouldn't send a message for him. He rests his chin on the curve of his hook.

Another thought hits him as he does it, eying his hook as though he'd never seen it before. One heart. The Queen of Hearts stayed ten steps ahead of her daughter then, and it would floor him if that wasn't the case now, but his hook! Enchanted to remove one heart, unfulfilled. And tell her to do what exactly—keep up in the woods and try not to get lost? Hearts control another person, not magically change their abilities. You'd be throwing in your lot with Cora then, he tells himself, closing his eyes at the idea. That thought doesn't bother him so much as another one, one simultaneously simpler and much worse...it means leaving Emma here. He might as well think about it since his mind came up with it. You shoved your revenge to the side before and look where it got you, he reminds himself, stepping down into the pit.


	7. Deceptions and Distractions

**A/N: Thank you to those who have left reviews. They mean so much and feedback is important. I do not own OUAT. **

* * *

In the dark, unsavory art that is removing a person's heart, Killian realizes with much irony that he is virginal. Aurora lies contorted, but nonetheless in a reclined position, right where Cora had probably thrown her. Heaving, he places his hand on her chest first and maneuvers it around until he feels her heart pulsating back at him. It needs to be in the right place, or else he'll kill her. He spreads his fingers. There's no need for force, or at least he won't try force first. The enchantment should be all he requires. Placing his hook between his fingers, knowing the heartbeats are directly under it, he presses.

She moans once and he holds his breath, so startled he almost slips his hook out right then and there, wanting nothing more than to run out of the pit altogether. Eyes rolling around underneath her eyelids, she sighs, her breaths easing back into a normal rhythm.

The tip of the hook stops at something squishy and slippery. Turning his hand over into a cupping position, he taps the heart more and more until it plops right out of her chest into his hand, beating the entire way.

He stares at it, eyes wide, terrified he'll drop it, that he'll hold it too tightly and end up crushing it himself. Jerking his head back at Aurora, she sleeps, as if nothing has happened at all. To be honest, he doesn't know what to expect when he wakes her. He's read plenty, that these particular victims do in fact feel, just a dimmed, detached sort of feeling. Nothing truly saddens them. Nothing brings them joy. Every feeling in the range of human emotion grows milder, meeker, leaving only this strange sense that that's not how it should be. A fate worse than death, to him, the promptness with which she was killed the only, only saving grace in regards to Milah's destruction. He wraps the heart in a cloth and buries it into his satchel.

Sighing, he braces himself.

"Wake up." Stop looking at the door. Look at her! "Wake up. Come on, sweetheart. Wake up. Wake up." Stop looking at the door, mate, he reminds himself. "Wake up!" Her eyelids finally flutter, everything in her countenance screaming disorientation. "On your feet. Hurry." It might not spell his doom if Cora walked in now, the heart secured, but she might not be patient enough to be willing to hear that explanation.

"No! No!" she screams. He guesses that means she's finally come to. "Are you going to kill me?"

"If I were here for that, then waking you first might not be the best course of action," he says with an eye roll, breaking the shackles on her wrists.

"So what, did Cora send you?" she shrieks. Bloody hell, Cora will be tromping down here ready to pull out hearts if she doesn't lower her voice.

"Cora has no idea I'm here." Speak slowly now, he tells himself. She stands still, but is no less frantic.

"I, I don't understand."

"Look, I know you're sleepy...isn't it obvious? I'm setting you free."

"What is this? Some sort of pirate's ruse?"

Oh, you have no idea, love.

"Cora's denied me passage to Storybrooke and my vengeance, and now I'm going to deny her her wishes, starting with the compass." Acting angry isn't much of a stretch, not when every last one of her arrogant, patronizing words from earlier is still seared into his brain. "In pirate terms you might say I'm firing a shot across my enemy's bow."

"You'd risk your life to break in here, all so you could thwart Cora?" Now it just sounds bloody stupid when she says it like that.

"I don't like being double-crossed. Now go." He steps aside and motions to the door for good measure, watching how her eyes gaze at it as if life depends on it. In a way, it does, in her case. And in his...he can't let her leave just yet. He needs an alternative or else he's just dug himself into a corner. Not too late to just run off with her and hope they find the others before Cora does...

"Thank you," she whispers. He catches her arm before she breaks into a run.

"You can thank me by doing me one favor."

"What?"

An alternative.

"Give Emma a message." He smiles. "Tell her that the deal still stands. If she provides me passage back to her realm, I _swear _I will help her find that dust that opens the portal." His mouth doesn't know what to do, his eyes out of focus for a split second; he means it.

"You really want to assist us?" she asks. He wouldn't go that far, but he means it.

"It hurts Cora and helps me. Of course I do. Now go." This time, Aurora says nothing, no tiny murmurings of gratitude. She just runs. Smart. Snorting at himself, now that he's alone, he rests against the wall of the pit that never really held any prisoners. They still have to gain the wardrobe ashes, which means another imminent run-in with Cora. With any luck, no one will have noticed Aurora's condition of missing organs and, somehow, in the chaos, he can return it to her. He wouldn't even need to be close enough to do it himself, just leave it with her and go about his business.

The door creaks, prompting him to stand straight. Too far to sneak up on her effectively enough to just slit her throat with his hook, he waits, committed to this plan. Cora doesn't even see him, bustling over to where Aurora had been chained.

"Looking for someone?"

"Oh, don't tell me you were dumb enough to let her go." Arrogance can be a weakness, Cora dear.

"She was never going to give you what you wanted anyway." He begins shuffling, but squares his shoulders and digs his feet into the ground. Now is not the time to give in to nerves.

"So you freed her," she scoffs, shaking her head. "And stuck around for the petty satisfaction of seeing me suffer."

"Oh, watching you suffer is a tempting motivation, but it wasn't that."

"Well then you must have a death wish."

He can't respond, his feet flying up at the same time an unseen force sending him reeling into the wall. Rocks protrude out of it and coil around him, tight. No room to even roll his wrists when she approaches him, no trace of condescension now, and twists off his hook. Without any emotion or hesitation, she opens more of his shirt with it, exposing his heart, just as vulnerable and helpless as Aurora's had been. It has to save him.

"You know I have to kill you," she says.

"You should try thanking me."

"Really? Why's that?"

"Because I've brought you a gift. It's in the satchel." He droops his head, the only thing he can move, down towards it. Her eyes follow it, then back to him, not bothering to read him so much as argue if diverting her attention is worth the risk. If it's worth an inner debate, it is usually worth the risk, but he'll leave her to her thoughts. It's not as though he's going anywhere at the moment.

"What is it?" she finally asks.

"Customarily, surprise is part of the fun of gift-giving. Open it," he dares her, hoping she'll do it out of spite. Go on then. Holding his hook out right in front of him, she tears the satchel off its strap, squinting into it. Immediately, her head springs back up. Aw, didn't the glow give away what it was, he feels like asking, but he's still...magically bound.

"Is that..."

"Indeed it is. And with it, you'll get everything you want."

She smirks, or that's what he'll call it since he doesn't think she's capable of smiling, as she pulls the heart out, its glow illuminating her hand with pink patches. With her other hand, she twirls her finger in the air, eyes never leaving the heart. It sends the rocks that had been restraining him back into the wall. Dusting himself off, he keeps his distance, chiding himself for still doubting it will work. People don't just fashion fake hearts in their bodies for just such an occasion, he tells himself. Staring into the heart, Cora walks to the center of the pit, the faint swishing of her dress the only tell-tale sign she's not gliding as she does so. She whispers into it at first, the snippets of which he gleans to be directions.

"What are you doing?"

"Just giving directions," she chuckles. "They're closer than we thought they'd be. Well, Snow and Emma are. I'm not sure if Mulan is with them or has chosen to go her own way." She places the heart on the table and folds her arms. "Clever of you, Hook, thinking of this all on your own."

"Well, you forced it out of me."

"Then there isn't a...we'll call it a conflict of interest, shall we?" He raises his eyebrow as high as it will go despite understanding what she means. "I don't need to worry about your heart or..." She lowers her eyes at him, scaling downward. "...anything else making decisions for you?"

"Distractions are distractions," he says with a shrug.

He helps himself to a swig of rum while they wait, anything to pass the time. With how long he's grown used to waiting for what he wants, it still boggles his mind that once in a while his patience can just snuff out like a candle. Not even knowing what to expect when Aurora reaches the others, he considers asking if there is a preferable corner to relieve himself in just to see Cora's reaction.

_"Give me the compass,"_ he hears from the heart.

_"And seal Aurora's fate?"_ It speaks again, but in a different voice. Mulan's voice. Cora hurries over to it and picks up the heart, holding it out, close to her mouth.

"Hold back,"she says into it. "Just follow their voices." Turning towards him, she whispers, "Let's test our listening skills."

_"We learned how to overpower Cora. Once we get what we need, we will defeat her and Aurora will be free." _ It's Snow—a more crazed, shallow-breathing Snow, but Snow nevertheless.

_"Another journey, just as I predicted there would be."_ He clucks his tongue at Mulan, just imagining being stuck with her and listening to all manner of rants about how everyone else is wrong. _"Our best chance to save Aurora is to make that trade now."_

_"Not going to happen,"_ Snow snaps. The heart gives every sound an echo. Their voices bounce off the walls, almost like they're going through him. _"Without that compass, we can't get home."_

_"Then I hope you're prepared to use that arrow,"_ Mulan says at the same time Cora says into the heart, "Stop them."

"Stop!" Cora calls into the heart, making Killian jump.

_"Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but how the hell did you get here?"_ He knows that voice.

"Let Mulan go. I said let her go!" He's not sure if he's seen brilliance and surrealism coincide like this before, using Aurora as some sort of high-speed carrier pigeon, them talking to her at one end and Cora answering for her. Disorienting to watch, he turns a bit and just listens, hoping that will create the illusion of a regular discussion.

_"Were you followed?" _Mulan asks her.

"I...I don't think so. Cora may know I'm gone, but she didn't see me escape." A bit of a stutter, throwing in the truth with this charade...brilliance, bloody surreal brilliance and he feels both inspired and condemned for witnessing it.

_"How did you escape?"_ It is proof that it is indeed Emma's voice and not some disjointed heart trick, the way she refuses to let go of that line of questioning. Turning back, he crosses his arms and waits to hear Cora's answer.

"It was Hook. He let me go."

_"Why?" _

"Because of you. He said he wanted to prove to you that you should have trusted him. That if you had trusted him you could have defeated Cora together, that the two of you could have gotten the remains of the wardrobe. Without him, you'll have to go up against her all by yourself." Laying it on a little thick, aren't we, he wants to say but holds back so as not to disrupt whatever this is. "He only wants to help. I, I think he may care for you."

"Nice touch, that," he throws out, busying himself with the end of his hook. On the other hand, it is something Aurora would say.

"But you know she won't trust you," she says to him. Ha, the joke is on her as Emma never really trusted him to begin with, or did and didn't want to...confusing situation that no longer deserves any of his concentration.

"She doesn't have to. All I need is for her to believe that I was genuine in letting the girl go, which I wager she does now." Right across from her now, he breathes a quick sigh of relief at her lowering the heart, just holding it like an apple. "You're welcome."

"Impressive," she says after a minute, leaving him to wonder if it's good to impress Cora or not. It's a fine line, needing her to believe one is useful without overstepping the lines and coming across as a threat. "You took a heart."

"Now you have a princess."

"Indeed I do." She smiles, not even the slightest bit flustered at the cryptic references to something being able to defeat her that had emanated from the heart. Satisfaction becomes her, enough that he relaxes his shoulders and his face. It's finally time to leave this place, without looking back, and reach that crocodile, just basking in whatever pleasures the Land Without Magic has to offer, feeling safe and easy, all his misdeeds and crimes here long forgotten. He can see the monster's face pale, a phantom limp returning to him, the pupils in those fish bowl eyes dilating. For years, he's prepared himself for that reptilian face contorting in horror to be the last sight he'll see.

"Now...can we get on with the business of going to Storybrooke? Together?" He turns his mouth up and widens his eyes to show her his friendliness, that there are no hard feelings about her threat to abandon him here.

"Why not? I hate to travel alone. All we need is the compass."

"Which will soon be delivered." With one last flash of a smile, he retreats back out of the pit, eager for sunlight and the natural world where everyone's heart beats within their bodies and voices spring from no other place than people's mouths. Restless, he rushes from here to there, finally resigned to pacing around the smithy work station, the few belongings he moved from the ship right where he left them. If only he could be in Storybrooke now, doing something. Alone like this, waiting, just sitting around waiting and running his thumb over his military insignia, ancient now, his mind wanders to places he doesn't feel like visiting.

* * *

_"Go away, Liam."_

_ "It's my cabin." He spins a full circle for effect, frowning once he's facing him again. The stark white cabin, too new for Liam to even begin adding personal touches to it, lets in an absurd amount of sunlight. Killian slumps in his chair, resting his forehead on his folded arms. It should be an overcast day, nothing but gray as far as the eye can see, making everything around look metallic and cold. _

_ "Come on now, brother, even the mermaids look less stony than you." He pulls another chair out with his leg and eases right into it with a masculine sort of grace Killian fancies he is either too young or too impatient to emulate. He feels the familiar sensation of his brother's hand on his shoulder blade, just patting and rubbing. _

_ "Willis was part of my crew," he says to the plate of bread, not to his brother. _

_ "There was nothing you could have done."_

_ "A captain should know everything about those who sail under him." It had been one of those insidious, clandestine illnesses, the ones where it's too late once you start experiencing the symptoms. One day working the capstan and swabbing the deck while whistling a shanty, the next day confined to quarters coughing up blood. The other sailors had pitched makeshift tents on the main deck while Willis remained in quarantine, keeping to their shift schedules as much as possible. Killian had chosen an uncharted stop at the nearest port in hopes physicians might be able to heal him, ordering the men to build a stretcher...the four that had gone below decks to heave him onto it were the ones who reported the man's death._

_ "Captains are human," Liam says, hand not leaving his back._

_ You're not, he considers saying, too afraid his brother will take it the wrong way. Perfect, so efficient it seemed more a superpower than a trait, beloved by his crew..._

_ "You know," Liam says after clearing his throat. "It's good you feel this way."_

_ "How?"_

_ "Because horrible, tragic things happen in the world, brother, all the time, often enough people turn a blind eye to it, resigned to it. It's the people who don't think the world should work that way that are the ones who try to change it for the better. You're one of those people." Pulling on the back of his collar just hard enough to lift Killian's head off his arms, Killian takes the hint and props himself up on his elbows in order to look his brother in the eye. "Your men are lucky to have a man who cares so much looking after them."_

_ Nodding, he forces a smile. _

_ "Killian, if you want a change in scenery, and you know what they say—a change is as good as a rest—I've been charged with putting a crew together, a team, you might say, under the king's orders. Perhaps you'd like to be a part of it? First mate?"_

_ "Put a crew together? Is this why you have a new ship?" Highly irregular, but if anyone could impress the king to such a degree, it would be Liam._

_ "It's a bit hush-hush, but everyone going is going under my recommendation." With an eyebrow raise Killian can see every day in his own reflection, Liam grins. "It's what we've always talked about, isn't it? Having all these grand adventures together? Every door you can think of will open for you, for all of us. Just think of it! And it's for a good cause, a tremendously good cause."_

_ "What is it?"_

_ "Unfortunately, I can't say much more about it now..."_

_ "We're alone in your cabin and everyone loves you too much to spy on you..."_

_ "Rules are rules." Shaking his head, but smiling, Liam stands and waits at the door. "I'll put your name in, shall I? Best man I can think of, after all, the last man who would ever just stand by and watch tragedy and injustice unfold."_

_ "Laying it on a bit thick, aren't we?" he asks._

_ "When you're a bit older, you'll learn it's all right to lay certain things on a little thick," Liam laughs._


	8. Uncharted

Cora keeps herself to herself with squared shoulders, her cape even rustling in an elegant, regal way. The sound of rushing water roars as she brings Lake Nostos back to life. It settles into a round little pool, enough water for what they need, no longer dried up.

_"Dried up, dead, useless, much like you."_

She'd physically sunk, Swan, not just her face but her entire being when he told her he wouldn't have left her. Cora produces the ashes out of her cloaks and holds the vial out to him.

"And now the ashes. Would you care to do the honors?"

A peace offering, he gathers, as much a display of trust as someone like Cora can make. With a smile, he takes it, pops the top, and scatters the ashes into the lake. They disappear into the water, sinking, reuniting in a swirling, maddening frenzy until they weave themselves into a whirlpool with just enough of a purple hue to it for anyone to spot its magic. Storybrooke. Where her son is, who needs her, she'd said... Cora utters something about looking forward to seeing her daughter without any hints to her plans once she finds Regina. And just what are your plans once you find Rumpelstiltskin, he asks himself, swallowing just a little. Nothing, his mind answers for him. Just...done.

_"Just as I'm done with you."_

Gods, there had been no need for all the anger to burst out as it had. She and her mother and her companions languish in an inescapable cell, all but impregnable to anyone who didn't know to look for it, rendering rescue a distant dream. Fitting punishment for her betrayal...perhaps too fitting. He knows how it feels to be left with nothing to do but wait, wait for something you only hope will happen with no evidence it ever will. Her face had gone hard, unreadable, frozen in a cold scowl upon listening to his words, too proud to plead with him more than she already had. He considers leaving the bean, just throwing it out of his pocket at the last second, sporting chance and all that.

"I told you I'd deliver you Rumpelstiltskin," Cora says, holding out the compass. It forces a near double-take out of him, how placing his hand on that compass will bring his destiny right to him. "Now don't let go, unless you want to end up someplace that isn't Storybrooke."

Even though his body goes nowhere, he feels like he lunged. In his mind's eye, he could see himself plunging into the portal...if not for an arrow knocking the compass right out of his hand. Straight across from them, Swan, Mulan, and Snow, the latter just lowering her bow, stare them down.

"You're not going anywhere! This portal's taking us home!" she yells to them. His eyes dart along the sand in search of the compass. Looks like there's still a chance they'll all be going to Storybrooke together, except Aurora. For a ridiculous moment, he wonders what they did to her.

"Find it first," Cora orders. "I'll take care of them."

He spots it, but if he reaches for it now, he'll give away its location. The corner of his eye warns him to draw his sword because somewhere along the line Swan has picked one up and she's running straight for him. With both arms swinging the sword around, she hacks away at the air in front of him, forcing him to block. He blocks again when she attempts to swing with one arm, growing used to its weight, but that's all that can be spoken of favorably in regards to her form. So she resorts to kicking...

With fireballs and arrows slinging around, he rather has the easy end of things, already disarming her. He stands there, wondering if she knows where the compass is and if she'll make a run for it. Grunting, she throws herself into him. It takes nothing to side-step and help her find her way to the ground. She rolls over onto her stomach in a split second, her hand inches from her weapon.

The puerile part of him wins out, choosing to toy with her. After all, Cora will make short work of Snow and Mulan; neither of them can rival her with magic. Bending over, he takes hold of Swan's leg and drags her back. She's even lighter than he thought she'd be.

A flash of something in the air diverts his attention, though. Cora's vanished in a puff of smoke, sending the sack with Aurora's heart flying right above the portal. He has to bend backward to reach it, stretching out his arm as far as it will go, the strap just barely looping over the tip of his hook. Releasing Swan, he tosses it over the portal back to Mulan. Well don't just stand there, he thinks. Get going. Mulan out of the fight, his evil deed undone...well, remedied, anyway, he grins at Mulan's stumped expression, Swan finding time to collect her sword.

"I may be a pirate, but I bristle at the thought of a woman losing her heart—unless it's over me," he tries, hoping that will finally satisfy Mulan. Swan nods at her at the same time Snow sprints over to her shouting, "Go!"

"No! But you need the compass!" Mulan cries.

"And Aurora needs her heart!" He sees her hand over her sword to Snow. Well, a fine time of bonding for everyone then, watching Mulan run off.

"I had no idea you had such a soft side," Swan scoffs, this time walking with the sword instead of charging. She learns, is calculating how she wants to move.

"I don't. Just like a fair fight." He'll take the offensive this time, banging her sword softly at first, only to spring at her. Blocked. He lowers. Blocked. Indeed she does learn. They bring the swords up at the same time, hardly uncrossing during the entire movement.

"Good form," he says. Perhaps in another life, under different circumstances, they could have sparred. Her leg slides out, her footwork the only thing worse than her clunkiness with the weapon. Hooking it up onto his thigh, he grins. "But not good enough." Again, he sends her to the ground. Oh, she'll get through the portal even if he has to knock her in there himself, but in what capacity, still breathing heavily, hair all over the place—he slides his hook down her sword, bracing it with his own, just to see how she'll react.

"Normally, I would prefer to do other, more enjoyable, activities with a woman on her back." There's no way this is lost on her, he thinks, watching how she grits her teeth, how her lip curls up into a sneer. "With my life on the line you've left me no choice. A bit of advice? When I jab you with my sword, you'll feel it." Her eyebrows shoot straight up. No, not lost on her at all. Let her think whatever she wants. "You might want to quit."

They're close enough to the portal, all it would take is a good clenching of her shoulders and a brisk roll to send them both tumbling into it. Anyone else who wants to follow may do so as long as it's with haste.

"Why would I do that when I'm winning?" she murmurs, her inflections uneven and breathless as she holds up the compass. How...he stumbles backward when she kicks him, heaving him off of her. Sword drawn, he blocks a harder attack. Then another. No, she will not cost him Storybrooke. The bean tucked away in his pocket makes no difference, not now that she's growing dangerously closer and closer to besting him yet again. No. Emma Swan is _not _going through that portal first on her own terms. It takes both his arms and some of his weight to keep her from lifting her sword above her shoulders.

"Thanks!" Before he can wonder for what, everything goes dark.

* * *

The wind scatters some sand across his face and into his hair. Blinking a few times, he springs into a crawling position, fetching his sword laying at his side. He bends his wrist down so his hook arm can investigate why the side of his face throbs the way it does, his jaw locked. Opening and closing his mouth a few times, he stretches his jaw as far as it will go. The pain lessens, therefore so does his attention to it, taking in instead the sudden quiet. No whirring of a portal, no feet shuffling around in the sand, nothing.

Cora stands gazing vacantly at the lake. It doesn't take a genius to deduce what happened, everyone else gone. So it will require the bean, he thinks, nodding a little to himself. Why does that not surprise him?

"We failed," she says.

"Really, Cora, after all this time, why do you still doubt me?" Holding up the bean, he wonders just how difficult it would be for the woman to muster a smile, a bit of sincere gratitude once in a while. It wouldn't kill her, after all, to be genuinely pleased, pleased, not satisfied, as there is a difference.

"That bean's petrified. It's useless."

"But these waters have regenerative properties." No change in her face whatsoever. Oh well, he can smile for the both of them. "Perhaps it's time to do some gardening." He'll not risk tossing it in, so he dips it into the water, still holding onto its chain. With no glow or poofing sound, there is no outward sign the bean is any different from other ones. It just takes being able to look at it a certain way, to know, really know, how it will stand out.

"Take it out. Let's see it," Cora says. Only when he brings it out of the water and cups it in his palm does he see it's taken on a white, nigh-transparent quality, luminous. "That should work," she breathes.

"Then it's off to the ship. I hope you don't get seasick."

"Something tells me we won't be out on the water very long." She lifts her arm, contorting it with some flourish, preparing to draw upon some magic.

"Wait."

"I'm sorry," she huffs. "Did you want to take one last look at the scenery?"

"The giant. At the top of the beanstalk," he says through his teeth. He will ignore her snark for now. "What say you to conjuring him up and accompanying us?"

"Why?"

"Just what is it you plan to do after you find Regina?" he asks, choosing his words with care as her eyes burning at him is the clearest sign she will leave without him if he needlessly holds up her time.

"Very well. I would have you guess, but to save time, I plan to find Rumpelstiltskin's dagger and steal his powers." Her arms straighten and position themselves in front of her body, hands clasped together, nonplussed and matter-of-fact. It matches what he supposed from the start, from the moment in Wonderland she decided to spare him. But he must ask just the same.

"You'd overthrow your own daughter?"

"Certainly not," she laughs, reeling her head back. "She'll rule the little town she's created for as long as she wants, but she needs someone to advise her and to prepare the boy for greatness."

"Henry."

"Besides, if she makes a mistake or two, which she will, she can fall back on someone with limitless abilities. What does any of this have to do with the giant at the top of the beanstalk?"

"Surely you don't assume finding that dagger and controlling the Dark One a task everyone in town will be blissfully unaware of? A diversion, namely a giant one, might come in handy, another weapon in your arsenal, as it were." Waiting, he licks his lips and inhales. "Bloodthirsty barbarian, insatiable." He tilts his head, flexing his jaw one last time, wondering just how she'll manage the feat of retrieving Anton, nothing so simple as knocking at his front door.

"With me handling his leash, why not? This bean was his?" He nods as she places her fingertips on it. Closing her eyes, she mouths something indecipherable, then looks up and smiles. "He's secure. Shall we?"

With a sudden cloud of purple smoke obscuring everything around them, it fades away to reveal the pier where the Jolly Roger is docked, waiting for him. Hello, old girl, he thinks, inspecting it for any signs of wear and tear that had not been there when he'd left it. Trim still fresh, sails without tatters or frays, no fallen leaves curled up on the deck—not a bit of wear and tear.

"I'll take it from here," he says, climbing aboard, used to loosening all the lines himself by now. Cora makes her way up the gangplank and smooths a hair back in place, but then he never expected any compliments to his ship from her. Taking the helm, he spins it out of its docked position, the wind just right to send them out towards open sea at a high speed.

"Might want to hold onto something!" he calls to her, hurling the bean out with all his strength. The whirlpool it creates when it hits the water isn't as large as some of the maelstroms he's come across in his travels, and yet it feels just as boundless. He's steered the ship and now the current will do the rest, sending them faster, faster, faster into the oblivion. It's impossible to keep one's eyes open the entire jump from world to world. All one can do is squint through tight eyes at the swirling array of pale colors vaguely resembling water. With a nauseating lurch, the portal launches the ship into the air as if it is spitting it out. In a split second, after feeling his bones will go one direction and his organs another, the Jolly Roger coasts on smooth gray waters.

It looks serene, bland, but serene. A lighthouse near some craggy rocks, white boxy buildings a bit taller than he's seen before. Hard to believe a sleepy-looking village like this is where the crocodile has been hiding all these years. He imagines the horizon as a veil, waiting for him to hold out his hand and brush it to the side.

"There it is."

"Storybrooke."

* * *

**A/N: Coming up? Adventures in Storybrooke! **


	9. The Citizens of Storybrooke

**A/N: A lot of notes on this one. Mr. Krzyzkowski is the name of the town records guy in 1x9 and I had a hell of a time trying to figure out his Enchanted Forest identity. Scouring fairy tales, classic literature, mythology, the public domain—it about destroyed me and I didn't come across any fan theories that I could really use. So...I left it a mystery. I gave Smee the cursed name of Joe Hull because 1.) Joe Marks played Smee in the 1954 Mary Martin stage show of _Peter Pan _and 2.) Smee was a boatswain and one of the duties of the boatswain is to oversee the hull.**

**I also took some liberties with the timeline. "The Cricket Game" begins at night, has a day, then night, then another day. It would have made more sense to consider the daytime scene of "making tacos" a flashback so the first night scenes could have been one night, but I wanted a full day between. "The Outsider," to me, starts the night after all the stuff happens at the pawn shop and Regina's house when Emma attempts to arrest her.**

* * *

He'd climbed the rigging up into the crow's nest after dropping anchor, nothing to do but wait for the stars and the cover of darkness before disembarking. Parts of the buildings and the lamps alongside the streets light up without anyone stopping at each one to light them. Distant outlines of people walked here and there in the evening, not so much now. The sails flap in the wind, a familiar sound in this unfamiliar world. Leaping down, he's waited long enough.

He extends his hook out to Cora, armed with her parasol, and follows her down the gangplank. He counts on her focus on finding her daughter to make farewells short and quick. They may want the same thing, but now that the Jolly Roger has accomplished its task in bringing them here, he will look more and more like dead weight to her, not to mention he needs to find someone who knows how to navigate this foreign port. She, in contrast, closes her eyes and inhales, smirking at whatever that sensation has told her.

"Well, my dear Cora, this is where we shall part ways. Thank you for everything. It's time for me to skin my crocodile." There. Polite and congenial enough for the damned woman and her ambiguous face, always either amused or tempering an unbridled rage with feigned amusement. He'll do nothing but stroll around at first, find his bearings, learn how to return back to the harbor at various points...

"You might want to rethink this," she says, appearing right in front of him.

Heart's gone, is his first thought, fighting the urge to cover it with his hand. Her prisoner? He'd rather die. Her messenger boy? She won't trust him enough to find Regina for her and bring her to her.

"We had a deal. Get out of my way."

"Believe it or not, I'm doing you a favor."

"By preventing my vengeance?"

"Ask yourself how I'm doing that," she challenges. It hits him—her teleporting. What was an everyday occurrence back in their land should have been an impossibility here.

"By using your dark magic." His face falls. All of him falls, wishing nothing more than to burn a hold into the very pier holding them above the water. Land Without Magic. Land of False Advertising. The Dark One, with nothing more than a giggle and some flourish, would change him into a snail right on the spot, could snap his neck with a snap of his fingers.

"Exactly. Magic is here, and that makes matters a bit more complicated. If you go off half-cocked after an empowered Rumpelstiltskin, do you know what'll happen to you?" No, he wouldn't settle for something quick and sordidly merciful. No, he'd find plenty of poetic justice in tearing out his heart and prancing around with it, tightening his grip more and more until it can't take it. "So you do. Good."

"Hey! You folks need anything?" A man with a thick, dark beard and layers over layers stops by, eyes wide and eager. "Tackle shop don't open till morning. But, if you want to go out and try and snare some of New England's finest pescatarian creatures, I'd be happy to open early for you." Nothing about the man suggests any malice; rather, an abundant amount of hospitality with a dash of hope in regards to making a sale. He won't last.

"No, thank you, we're fine," Killian tries with a sharp tone.

"It's a fine vessel you got there. When'd you get in?" No, won't last long at all. It's not often a compliment to the Jolly Roger will cost a person.

"What vessel?" Cora asks, leaving the man speechless for a good split second.

"Why, why that one right..." She waves her free arm and the ship vanishes. It can't be gone. He'd feel it. After all that ship had seen with him and been through with him, surely he'd feel it, some sense of deep irreversible loss. The man rambles on about tricks and magic, the words fading away with a gust of purple smoke. Oh yes, didn't last long at all. A flapping, spasm-ridden tuna has taken his place, seizing in an attempt to find water. Wrong place at the wrong time, mate, Killian thinks, shoving it into the water with his boot.

"What did you do with my ship?" he asks.

"I hid it from prying eyes. For what we both want to do, we need the element of surprise. Now are you ready to listen to me?"

Tempted to ask how magicking everyone who happens to see them into tuna maintains the element of surprise, he tucks his tongue into his cheek.

"Go on, your Majesty. What now?"

"Let's go have a little look at this Storybrooke, shall we?"

* * *

He returns to the Main Street as early in the morning as possible. Only a few people walk by, only a few of the loud metal carriages roll along the street. It doesn't matter. He knows where he's going now.

Running up the steps of the Town Records building, he inhales as he pushes open the door, the first building he's entered here. Turning the corner, a balding man looks up from a chair behind a counter and sighs. Behind the counter every inch of wall is covered with stacks of boxes, filled-to-capacity bookshelves, and papers sticking out of every crack. There is nothing on this side of the counter except for crown molding and a clock. Killian had hoped to talk to as few people as possible, but he will need to enlist this man's help if he is to have access to any records. Smiling, he paints a gregarious demeanor over himself and approaches.

"Good morning, sir. I'm here to pose the question to you as to how one would go about finding where a person within Storybrooke lives?"

The man stares at him, unblinking, groaning when he heaves himself off his chair and staggers over to him. He reaches into one of the shelves on the other end of the counter and produces a thick yellow book with flimsy pages.

"Phone book. I'd start there."

"Thank you, Mister..."

"K. Just, just easier if we leave it at that."

Killian flips through the pages scoured with names and numbers. It is the most comprehensive directory he's ever seen, Storybrooke clearly larger and more heavily populated than it looks. On the page he needs, his finger skims down the names almost as fast as his eyes. Raising an eyebrow, he tries again, from the bottom to the top this time. He checks the first name on the page as well as the last.

"Sir, Mr. K? Someone is missing from you directory."

"That's impossible. It was updated three months ago," he says neither with a break between any of the words nor with a look in his direction.

"I tell you, the name William Smee is not where it should be." He'll remain content to be the bumbling newcomer for now, ignoring this K fellow's lack of hospitality. Sighing much louder than need be, Mr. K. exaggeratedly stands once again and, well,, to Killian, he looks like someone ready to step on a spider.

"Real name or cursed name?"

"His real name." Why would anyone bother with a directory of cursed names...because the curse is just recently broken, he reminds himself, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes at himself lest Mr. K. interpret it as a lack of courtesy. "I don't know what name he went by under the curse," he adds. "Isn't there some kind of log as to everyone's real identities?"

"Look, pal, I'm a cursed-imposed record keeper. You got a missing loved one, draw a picture and post 'em up in front of the town hall like everybody else."

"I'm rather short on time..."

"Then you go down and hire yourself a private eye or get yourself over to the sheriff station and ask Sheriff Swan if she can find whoever you're looking for. It's what we pay her for," he says. Swan's the sheriff. Fitting. Now he really will have to make sure he maintains a low profile.

"There has to be some way to determine where his information in this book is," he begins.

"Yeah, well, there's not."

"There's no need to be unpleasant about it," he finally says.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Got a problem with my customer service skills?" Mr. K. asks, head cocked. Killian smirks.

"If you were a dwarf your name would be Surly."

Mr. K.'s mouth twitches, possibly fighting off a smile. There is a faint glimmer in his eye. With a sigh, he turns the book around and starts flipping through the pages.

"I see a lot of people throughout the town. Can you describe who you're looking for?"

"He was a sailor in our land, fairly short, heavyset, always wears a red wool cap," he says, afraid to look back far enough to remember when it was he last saw Smee. No time for that anyway, as Mr. K. is tapping his finger on the countertop and nodding his head.

"I think I know who you're talking about! Name's Joe Hull around here, if that's who you're looking for. Got a beard?" He nods. "Yeah, shady kind of guy. Hull, Hull..." He turns the page, then another, and then stops. "There you go. He's not far from here."

"You don't happen to have a map of the town, do you?"

"You really were cursed in reverse, huh? I got map of the town somewhere. Hold on." Disappearing off to the side to fetch a map, Killian reads the sparse information parceled out about this new, post-cursed Smee. Joe Hull, seven numbers, followed by two more alongside the word "maple." One day all this will mean something to him, he tells himself, that all the fake numbers and names and lives will become second nature. Mr. K. returns and hands a folded-up map out to him. Might as well ask.

"These numbers here..."

Picking up a bulky-but-small object, Mr. K. sets it down with a slight clang. He picks up the top of it and holds it up to his head.

"Phone. Pick this part up, listen for the ringing sound. Dial those numbers, wait. Person on the other end picks it up. Kind of an advanced carrier pigeon. But you're close to where the guy is anyway. I highlighted his street on your map there."

"Thank you for your time," he says, telling himself the conversation won't lead to being found out as he walks back out the door. No one had entered or exited the building the entire time, so he gathers it's not often a crowded place, not one a tenacious sheriff may frequent at any rate. He studies the map before he heads outside so as to find the more direct route. The center of the city is more or less a grid, filled with marked intersections designed to make navigation easier. The streets wind a little more on the outskirts, but he will worry about that when the time comes. Maple Street isn't that far at all.

* * *

"Mr. Smee?"

The apartment gives off a dank, musty odor, too pungent to be traceable to any one source. Smee leaps up from a sofa, instantly pushing a button on a long black device that causes the moving pictures he was watching to vanish, pornographic, from the brief, blurred look of it. A leaning stack of plates and cups wobbles on the small table next to him when he moves.

"Captain!"

A smile spreads across his face, a more genuine one than he'd anticipated. Smee—weaselly, prying, infantile Smee—a familiar face. Arms out, he waits for a handshake and a warm greeting as if they were going to go out for drinks; Smee doesn't disappoint, hustling over to him with a shocked, nostalgic expression of his own.

"What are you doing here? How, how did you get here? Have you come to take us all home?"

"Unfortunately no, Mr. Smee. I've spent too much time trying to get to this land to turn around and leave it now. You know why I'm here."

"Rumpelstiltskin," Smee says, his shrewd eyes narrowing.

"What do you know of him?"

"He goes by Mr. Gold here. He runs a pawn shop and is the richest, most powerful man in town. He owns just about everything."

Backwards place, Storybrooke, he thinks. Although he should have expected it. The Dark One would never allow the Dark Curse, whether cast by him or not, to strip him of his riches and comforts. A bitter laugh coughs out of his throat. Ah, and we know why, don't we, that for all your swag you're still just the fearful peasant on the inside, aren't you? Rich in this land, he may be, but he will count on the monster not possessing one shred of courage.

"I need to bring someone here, temporarily," he says after a breath, noticing more than one stain on the rug as well as the sofa. Cora attempting to merely stand in such squalor will be a sight.

"Of course!" Smee cries, scurrying around to pick up after himself. "I can tidy up a bit and you can stay as long as you need."

* * *

_ It's easier to dream on the Jolly Roger than anywhere else, a ship of dreams. Cora stays with Smee tonight, not the most rewarding outcome of killing some stranger and kidnapping the cricket down in the hold, but he's chosen to not care. Smee can play host for a night and now, with any luck, he and Cora won't have to see much of each other. It won't be long before Regina will be broken enough to meet her mother's standards, he thinks, bringing his arms up and around so his head rests on his hand. It was a fragile thing he'd overheard on the rooftops tonight._

_ "...at least he took care of him while you were away...like I did, during the ten years you were away the first time!"_

_ He couldn't zero in on their faces all that much—the spyglass does have its limits, but there is that unmistakable flinch followed by severe tensing that Swan, Sheriff Swan, does when someone strikes a nerve, and surely there was no greater nerve than that. _

_ "Okay, thanks for coming." Turning to go, Regina took a jerky step towards her._

_ "No, wait, I'm sorry. I, I'm, I'm sorry." The women had frozen, Swan's head slumped like she'd heard it all before and Regina as though she were trying to shake a demon out of her. "Snapping at you...I shouldn't have done that. Will you accept my apology?" It occurred to him that perhaps the Queen never had the chance to see a real, sincere conversation due to having Cora for a mother. Ordering, chiding, threatening—the woman could do. A proactive, honest attempt to parent with another? He had almost cast a glance at Cora, but changed his mind. Something told him she wouldn't make the same observations._

_ "Okay," Swan says, softening only in her tone. "You're right." Right? What was this now? This was Swan putting forth an effort, being self-deprecating, even, at the very woman who had cursed her family and her kingdom in the first place. Henry, he thinks. She's a different person when it comes to her child, not so guarded or defensive. "Archie said you were trying to change, and, well, you are."_

_ Regina bristles at this, which forces one of his eyebrows to arch. She even set her jaw. Failing to understand why, he listened closer._

_ "Dr. Hopper said I was trying?"_

_ "He said you came to see him. That you're trying not to use magic, that you're trying to be a better person. You understand, I was hesitant to invite you." Now it was Regina's turn to tense up, squaring her shoulders and masking her own struck nerves with a queenly aloofness. "I asked him, and he thought it was a good idea."_

_ "Thank you. It was. I should be going."_

_ He'd lingered, long after Cora had gone about her murderous business, all the while promising himself he wouldn't stay long. Morbid curiosity, nothing more, had bid him to stay and observe how Swan acted around all this company, what she looked like when she wasn't tired, hungry, dirty, and worried sick. Her hair fell in waves, not as straight as it had been before, long and pinned out of her face. She'd accepted a long-stemmed glass from her mother with a clear-enough liquid he presumed to be white wine and mingled from person to person. Kind and friendly to each of them in turn, smiling and making what he gathered to be small talk, but her eyes forever sought out her boy, a brown-haired, lanky child with bright, nigh-mature gestures and movements. _

_ And here he is, dreaming he was down there with them, an arm around her, chatting about nothing and yet sharing a look at how restful and heartwarming it was to be back with the people who had missed her so, her father and her son most of all. It's far from the most...physical dream he's had, nothing more than her messing up his hair with a grin, her head leaning on his shoulder here and there. But, gods, it's so bloody perfect. So warm, so right, so damned wonderful to see her reunited with her family again._


	10. Belle's Love

Belle. He remembers her. Even a concocted tale about Rumpelstiltskin rampaging her village and targeting her father had failed to persuade her into betrayal. He hadn't given her much thought apart from the consolation that the crocodile believed her to be dead, and now apparently this world has granted the monster the luxury of dining with her in his own shop. From across the street on the rooftops, his spyglass never leaving his face, he had seethed enough when he'd watched him unlock his shop, parading around in expensive clothes and probably an even more expensive walking stick. Outwardly, he wanted for nothing, a confident swagger shining through in spite of the limp. No customers dare to enter, except for her. His True Love.

* * *

_"None of these look like what they're supposed to be," Bae says, lowering the spyglass with a grunt. His star charts scatter a bit with the breeze, so he slams his hand over them, harder than he must have intended because he winces immediately afterwards. Stifling a laugh, Killian can't help but chuckle just a little. Not that star navigation is an easy venture, patience most definitely a virtue._

_ "Who would ever think to call this Virgo?" he continues to vent, unaware he's correctly spotted the constellation. They sit on barrels on the quarterdeck. "It's just a bunch of connected lines. Even if you think it looks like a woman, she's just falling out of the sky."_

_ "Well, she does have her legs open as she goes," he offers. The lad isn't used to bawdy talk. He laughs and blushes at the same time. However, Killian himself would say he hadn't felt much like laughing at all prior to Bae's own fall out of the sky. Pan must have approved the boy's entrance, the constant nightfall giving way to some daylight here and there now. But he won't think about that. He can't think of that after learning how the boy came to be here in the first place. Just when he thought he couldn't hate the Dark One anymore, he chooses power, opulent, destructive power, over his own child. _

_ Milah abandoned her own child, too, a nagging portion of his brain reminds him._

_ For me, he tells it. Fundamental difference, that. Shifting, he finds Bae even more crestfallen than he had sounded._

_ "What ails you, lad? Homesick?"_

_ "Just, just thinking about missed opportunities. That's all."_

_ "What missed opportunities might those be?" He'd been reticent on the subject of his father ever since they'd talked about the dagger, and he'd be lying if that had surprised him at all. The wound is still too fresh, too deep, to discuss freely. Killian recalls hearing word of children being conscripted into the war with the ogres, the cutoff age ever decreasing. Since "insatiable bloodlust" is a phrase one would have to be mad to associate with Bae, it must be something else._

_ "You'll think me petty."_

_ "Maybe I already do," he teases, nudging him for a moment. It results in a small smile. "Girl?"_

_ "Back in the village. Her name was Morraine. She was the only person who would talk to me after, after...after things in my family changed. She was the only one who wasn't afraid to talk to me."_

_ Ah. Well, there is nothing he can do about that. The girl is so far from Neverland she might as well be a story. _

_ "You hold onto whatever memories you have of her, mate," he tells him, feeling a sudden, relentless need for a drink. He almost spills the contents of his flask as he flings it up to his mouth. "Whatever you have to hold onto, hold onto it. No sense in torturing yourself with what could have been when somewhere in there is something sweet enough to hold onto that also happens to be real." Already there are days when Milah's image is fuzzier than he needs it to be, the days when he retrieves his keepsake, a sketched self-portrait of her that fills in the details his own weak self can't seem to retain. No one among the crew mentions her, even though they wear the clothes with the patches she stitched into them. The intricately-patterned blankets she liked to spend her share of plunder on, the ones the others teased her for buying, came in handy on cold nights, gave everything a splash of color._

_ "I will." _

_ Guilt latches onto him and worms its way right into his core. Now would be the time to tell the boy about his mother. Bae deserves the truth, deserves to know more about her. But her words haunt him, even if her face won't. He won't understand. He'll hate him. _

_ "Take a breather for now. Call it a night," he suggests._

* * *

Seething. Physically seething. He paces the rooftop like an animal in a cage, unable to spy on them any longer. Why? After all the monster's done, he has her, and truly has her as she shows him with every glance, every gesture, that she adores him. She initiates touches, smiles coyly, needs to be close to him, and jealousy threatens to consume him. Jealous because of Belle? Pretty, yes. Irresistible, no. But just what was this land's vision of justice where bloody Rumpelstiltskin not only had someone to love and live for, but could revel in and draw strength from her love as well? After all this time, the beast who ripped the heart out of an unarmed woman who posed no threat to him had another chance bestowed upon him...while he prowsl the rooftops with nothing but his vengeance, now guilty of the same crime.

Stopping mid-step to keep from tearing out his own hair, he detaches from the subject matter, searching for technical qualities rather than emotional effect. The shawl...should be his, but we're leaving emotions out of it for now...lays locked in the safe of the crocodile's shop. The cricket had screamed out that Belle worked in the town library, preparing it for public use. How lovely, he had thought. They can work right across the street from each other. All he needs to do is pull a bait-and-switch, which the crocodile ironically seems to fall for. Blast, why isn't Smee here yet?

"Captain! I'm here, I'm here," Smee puffs up, cheeks bloated and blotched from running.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"In the trunk of Rumpelstiltskin's car," he says while gazing up at him with piteous eyes, like a dog. "He kind of has it out for me."

"Why am I not surprised? The shawl, in the safe, what does it do?" he asks.

"I don't know, Captain. He drove me all the way to the town line. We can't cross it, those of us affected by the curse, or we'll lose our memories. He did something to my hat. He enchanted it and sent me over not even sure if whatever spell he cast on it would work. He didn't say much else. He's a menace, Captain!"

Killian just now wastes energy in glancing in Smee's direction, the tone and sad-eyed expression just on the cusp of a whimper indicates Smee now considers this endeavor revenge for his own misadventure with the Dark One. Really, it wasn't too hard to deduce. He sighs, half-groans, at him.

"You're lucky he allowed you to walk away." Turning, he starts for the back ladder to climb down and finally start this day. "Keep a sharp eye on the shop. Once he leaves, you know what to do. We'll meet back here later as soon as we can."

"Aye, Captain."

"Say it again."

"Aye, Captain?"

"Understand, Smee. Leave him nowhere to run to. Get that shawl."

He hops down off the last rung and looks across at the library, massive and eye-catching in comparison to the other buildings on the street if for no other reason than it boasts a tall clock tower. Still beige and white, it wouldn't matter a trifle anywhere else. He hurries over and tries the front door, knowing Belle too cautious to leave it unlocked. However, there is always more than one way to enter a place and those who want in tend to find ways. He weaves around to the back of the building and tries the windows, grinning when he finds one unlatched. Funny how people tend to assume only the fronts of places should be guarded against burglaries; it's like the backs of some buildings just don't exist to them.

The library doesn't all for much natural light, advantageous. An older building in design, its main room leads off into side ones with a few hard-backed chairs and a table in each, for reading, he gleans, noticing the tiled floor could use some polish. This side room here allots as much shadow as any other, so he closes the window and huddles over against the shelves, scanning the titles on the spines while he waits. Languages of this land, guides to speaking and understanding whatever Chinese, German, Korean, Russian, Spanish sound like. Each book thick and heavy, he pulls one out and flips through it. A dictionary, it offers up only how to spell words in an unfamiliar tongue.

He won't dignify the sound of the front door unlocking with a smirk, nor the soft thudding of footsteps starting routine work.

"Uh, sorry, the library's not open yet," he hears, watching her out of the corner of his eye. He always did find Belle's voice quite melodious, the accent not a commonplace one. The shadows must conceal more than he'd expected, her words more helpful and businesslike than afraid. Now he allows himself a smile, aiming it right at her.

"Oh, I'm not here for the books, love." There. Recognition. She pales, just a little, recoiling and straightening all at once in preparation to run.

"You. You're the one who broke into my cell at the Queen's palace."

Always nice to make an impression, he thinks, lengthening a narrow grin at her. She breaks into a run, her heels screeching against the floor when she sees he's right there alongside here. He crosses over to a cart filled with books, able to spring at her from whichever direction she tries to flee.

"You wanted to kill Rumpelstiltskin," she heaves.

"Oh, I still do. But right now I'll settle for you."

She shoves the cart right into him, the corners of the books toppling over his head on their way to the floor. Swatting at them, he rolls over and leaps back up. So close to the front door, she runs towards a little room, very little, with nothing in it. Doors appear from the sides and form a barrier between the two of them. He pounds on them as hard as he can. It has to sound like thunder in there to her. He can scarcely make out her voice, clipped and shaken, the words "Rumple" and "elevator" clearer than anything else. That should work for now. With one final bang on the door, he sprints back to the back window, sure to shut it on his way out.

* * *

Trapped. The Dark One trapped in this little town with no way out that will spare him his memories or identity. Too early to consider it a victory, he can still consider it a triumph of sorts, shattering the monster's hopes and securing the shawl for himself. True enough, he had prettier things created by her, but this had also been Bae's, made for him by the loving hands of his mother. And, he realizes, finally spotting that blank space of harbor where the Jolly Roger waits, it will keep the Dark One from tampering in the boy's life again.

Stepping onto the gangplank, he freezes at what sounds like a giant mouse...or a giant cricket... scurrying below decks. With as much stealth as he can muster, he tiptoes down the steps in pursuit of the intruder, hook out in front of him.

Belle—busying herself by rummaging through his things and picking a lock, no less. A quick glance over at the hull lets him know the cricket is long gone, and, unlike unsavory Smee, will have no qualms in informing the necessary authorities about where he's been. Wonderful, Swan raiding his own ship and getting in the way of his revenge all over again thanks to this delusional girl.

"Looking for this?" he asks, draping the shawl over his hook. She doesn't jump.

"That doesn't belong to you," she says. Braver than he thought, but just as naïve.

"Oh, it does now," he almost laughs. Her eyes veer in the direction of a small metal...always metal here...L-shaped object she must have brought with her. He grabs it not even a second before she does and the action leaves her looking even smaller than she did before. Curious. It sports a trigger, like a crossbow, only tinier, and instead of an arrow, the top of it is a tube. A little hammer-like device in the back explains the contraption well enough. Lighter than a crossbow, too, he decides, repositioning his fingers.

"Oh...my dear Belle, you should have stayed with your books. Real life can get so...messy." He points it at her forehead. Her breathing's a little louder. Good. It won't be long before the cricket will return with others and now he has something to barter with. Could dump her back on the port and find another place to hide the ship, he counters, shaking his head at that. Mercy. Pity. Admiration. Distractions, the lot of them.

"I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not leaving without that," she says.

"Well, I admire your loyalty, but helping Rumpelstiltskin? I'm afraid you're fighting a lost cause." Setting the shawl on the counter, he lowers the weapon a fraction, daring her to try to snatch it.

"He needs that shawl to find his son!" she says, so passionately, he might add, like just the mere utterance of the words will change anyone's mind. So unabashedly proud of her morality, so similar to Bae it's not funny.

"What makes you think his son wants to be found?" He has to admit—Belle stunned is a humorous sight. The thought really never occurred to her. The amount of faith she must place in her lover...it's a wonder some love potion wasn't involved in their abomination of a courtship; that's the only thing that would make sense. "Hmm? I doing that boy a favor."

"Have you not hurt Rumple enough?"

"Ah. I've hurt him?" He holds up his hook. He considers pulling the trigger right here and now, just to see what it will do, just to watch how it will kill her for that remark.

"You stole his wife!"

Oh, truly a world with no justice, a cursed world indeed when everyone hears the tripe spilling out of a crocodile's mouth. She's innocent, he reminds himself, inching towards her. Ignorant.

"Tell me something, love. If a woman comes to you, and _begs _you to take her away, is that theft?" He can feel the tip of her nose with his, hear her gulping, can make out the tiniest ghosts of words just on the brim of her lips.

"Why would she leave him?" Why, indeed? You have no complaints or criticisms of your lover now, do you, Belle? So sure he is some kind of gift to you, are you? Discovering his location and freeing the cricket implies some competence, the only evidence managing to keep him convinced she is not stark-raving mad.

"Because he was a coward," he growls. "And because she loved me." He edges away from her, back to the shawl, exhaling at not having voiced those words in so long. He doesn't know what to expect now, some sudden new outlook on the circumstances too unlikely. It's become a burden, the shawl...perhaps not as vital a triumph as he'd thought. "I should have burned this the moment I acquired it."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because she made it." It's a hoarse whisper, and the first reason above all others, shattering the Dark One's hopes secondary.

"I'm sorry she died, but...vengeance? Vengeance won't bring her back." Still trying even after face to face with her own weapon. He can't live in the same world as these lies any longer, the gentleness of her words ringing hollow all due to the fact the damned coward can't tell the woman he claims to love anything about who he is at the core. He gestures with the weapon still in his hand, ready to laugh if it fires at anything at this point.

"Died. Like it was some kind of accident. Is that what he told you?" He corners her again, looming over her tiny figure. Any intelligence, any bravery and pluck she may have simply flies out the window when it comes to love, he understands, and so he will do her the courtesy of breaking it. Any shred of innocence their relationship could still be clinging to by a thread now has to snap.

"He, well he...he didn't say..."

"No, of course not. Of course he'd leave out the most important detail of her passing."

"And, uh, what would that be?" she asks, not out of fear or confusion, but a weak attempt to still challenge him, to warn him she will dismiss whatever he says.

"He killed her." Taking the weapon, he slides the tubing along her chest. This, this is what Rumpelstiltskin does to those he loves, Belle, for he is not so idealistic to fool himself into thinking that there had never been a time Milah and Rumpelstiltskin loved one another. This is what he does to those who fail to please him and long to be free of him. "He ripped out her heart, and he crushed it right in front of me."

"No..." she breathes, shaking her head with a violence.

"Oh yes."

"No!"

"Yes, he will do anything—anything, to hold onto his power." He angles her head up with the weapon so she can look at him before backing away. "Why do you think anyone who's ever gotten close to him has either run away or been killed?" They stand on opposite sides of the cabin now, her face just brimming with rage. "Now, what makes you think you're any different? Tell me something, darling. Why would you want to fight for a man like that?" For the life of him, he cannot answer that question. Men like the crocodile, and himself, deserve nothing less than everyone's scorn.

"Because I still see good in him," she says. "Because I believe he's changed! Because his heart is true! And yours? Yours is rotten."

She slams the oar hanging from the bulkhead right into him. Before he can leap out of the way, it sends him stumbling back down into the hull, landing in coils of rope. Rotten heart, rotten to the core and in need of elimination.

"You have no idea," he murmurs before he scrambles to his feet, dashing down the hull and back to the far set of stairs. He will be able to cut her off this way, overtake her somehow and hold her prisoner until they come searching for her after a few helpful chirps from the cricket. He doesn't even need to blink when he emerges from below decks up to the main deck, Storybrooke obviously in a state of perpetual dreariness. Sure enough, Belle races down the quarterdeck's steps right to him.

"How did you..."

"Oh, I know this ship like the back of my...well, you know." He displays his hook, potentially not for show right now. "I suggest you give that back to me now."

"Or what?"

There. Now, here and now is where it will all come to pass, Rumpelstiltskin strolling up with his walking stick yet again set out to make a woman return home to him. But he's ready this time. No one to lose.

"Ah. You look...different in this world, crocodile. Like the coward I met so long ago—limp and all."

"And yet, you still can't kill me." It's an interesting amalgam of the old, simpering peasant and the disquieting repulsiveness of the Dark One—this creature boarding his ship and edging ever closer to him. Crocodile indeed, so quiet and still, just watching with bared teeth for the most opportune moment to strike.

"Let's have it, Dark One. What magic are you going to hide behind today?"

"Oh no, not magic," he laughs. In one swift motion, he raises his cane and strikes at lightning speed, sending Killian down to the deck. Another blow comes down too quickly to dodge. Amid Belle's protests and pleas to leave, the very edge of the cane slashes his lip. Everything feels bruised. Everything throbs, but his vision's not blurry yet. Her insistence they take the shawl and go does not yet reverberate around him like she could be anywhere.

"You're wasting your breath, love," he manages to say, now on his back. He's right. Bloody _hell_, he's _right_ and this will be it. He can't kill the Dark One, but he will kill the one good thing in the disgusting monster's life. "He can't resist. He has to prove he's not a coward."

"You may want to turn away, Belle. This isn't going to be pretty," Rumpelstiltskin hisses at her, his brogue sharpening the warning all the more. He swings the cane down right on his arm, his shorter arm, the one that reacts more to pain and always has since the last time he'd been held hostage on his own ship by the beast. It beats down again and again.

"Do it! Do it! Kill me!" he laughs, his voice cracking so much he can't even recognize it. Belle's face, the look of absolute horror. Justice at last, their love dying with him. "He has to show you how powerful he is!"

"No, Rumple! This, this is what he wants, to destroy every bit of good in you!" she tries, and the Dark One looks at her, listens to her, pays some kind of heed to her words. No, he wants to cry out at the top of his lungs. End it now.

"Rip my heart out," he says, bringing his head up. "Kill me like you did Milah, and then I'll finally be reunited with her!" He won't beg, but he will taunt. A smile graces the Dark One's face, a shiny narrow one more apt to be found on a crocodile, he thinks, as the cane clangs to the deck. Rumpelstiltskin brings his arms up, shrugging an untamed shrug.

"He has to die, Belle." Lunging at him, Killian can't twist away quick enough to keep Rumpelstiltskin's hands off his throat. Nor does he want to. He'd imagined this face the last sight he would ever see, but now, a failure at physically killing him, he contents himself with keeping his eyes on two seagulls circling around in the gray sky. Their love will die, one way or another, he promises himself. It's all too late for himself—happiness, love, a chance—and so it will be too late for the monster looming over him, for that is what is just.

"No! No, he doesn't! There's still good in you," she begs. "I see it. I've always seen it. Please. Please show me I'm not wrong." Belle's words freeze Rumpelstiltskin, save for his bottom lip trembling.

Still pinning him, he lifts one hand off of him, a rush of air hitting Killian like a punch to the gut.

"You take your little ship," Rumpelstiltskin snarls, pointing at him, "and sail until you fall off the edge of the world. I never want to see you again." He seals it with a pathetic slap across the face. Killian cringes in spite of himself, anticipating a stronger blow. "Let's go," he says to Belle, but she takes the lead, taking hold of his hand and marching him out of sight.

* * *

The blood along his lip dries long before he reaches Smee's apartment, sun setting over the rooftops. Where the bloody hell is he, anyway? Spineless rat probably took off and made a run underground after he'd presented the shawl to him. No matter. Nothing matters anymore. Placing the weapon on the sofa cushion, he shuffles through a stack of thin, papery books with close-ups of people's faces on them until he finds his half-buried phone book. Refusing to overthink, to question his own methods anymore, he turns the pages at a furious speed, tearing a few of them as he goes. No stranger to how this works any longer, he punches the number arrangement he _needs_ into Smee's phone. Needs...don't overthink it.

"Sheriff Swan," she answers, and, for just a moment, he is in awe of this device.

"Hello, Swan."

"Hook?" she snorts into the phone, loud enough to incite a wince. He hears nothing for what feels like an eternity aside from a muffled "Henry, go warm up some of the leftovers for Archie" before her voice comes back full force into the phone. "Where's Cora?"

"Oh, I have no idea, haven't seen her today. My business is elsewhere."

"Where are you?"

"I'm not going to tell you that, love. I just thought you ought to know that if anyone reports to you a missing person, bearded fellow, owns a bait shop, he's now a fish in the sea, thanks to Cora." There, his life ending on a high note. One last good deed.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"To bring some much-needed fairness into this world of yours, darling. Might as well do a good deed and report it to you before his friends start wondering as to his whereabouts. Give you something to keep you occupied once I and Rumpelstiltskin are out of your hair."

"Wait, wait," she says. "Gold's...Rumpelstiltskin's reported nothing to me."

"He doesn't need to, so certain he has enough power to see to his own affairs. He doesn't deserve her," he adds, his hook scraping into the countertop.

"Okay, listen. It's my job to protect the people in this town. You can't tell me what I think you're telling me and expect that to be the end of it." She pauses, her breathing, anxious breathing, the only sound. He closes his eyes. "If you won't tell me where you are, come find me. We'll go somewhere. We'll talk about this because you have no idea what's going to happen to you if you succeed."

He likewise has no idea what will happen to him if he fails, but he decides that's beside the point. His heart races, the weight of it all pressing down on him.

"Hook, I know what it's like to feel hopeless," she continues. "It's a horrible feeling, but, but there are other things you can do about it." He can feel, actually feel, her trying one more time. "Where are you?"

"No time for that, Swan. I best be on my way."

"I will find you," she says before he drops the top part of the phone back onto the rest of it. He grips the weapon again and leaves the apartment without closing the door.


	11. Standstill

**A/N: If anyone knows a good place for episode transcripts, that would be a really useful tool since soon all I'll have to go on is youtube clips (special thanks again, KillianHook!). I just like to have multiple reference points. Let's see...notes for this chapter...well, I will not be including the deleted scenes of Season 2. The jello scene for this episode is referenced in my other fic "Rescue Me" and the other scene doesn't make sense when mixed in with the finished episode, which is why I think it was cut in the first place.**

* * *

The thought hits him, terrifies him—he could die here, alone, cold, wet, in excruciating agony. His breaths grow more rapid, more shallow. Not even going to die in his native realm. A howl pierces through the night, almost singing in time with Belle's own cries of pain off on the other side of the road. Flashes of blue and red almost light up the street. Get it together, he scolds his mind, his back, his legs. Tears sting his eyes when he attempts to roll over into a crawling position. Voices echo here and there.

"...car pretty banged up with Pennsylvania plates..."

He can't twist. He knows Swan's voice when he hears it and yet has to wait for her to approach him. There won't be any way of masking just how much it hurts. The rain on his face and the puddle cradling the back of his head chill him to the bone and it hurts too much to even bloody shiver. Emma Swan usually carries a weapon of some kind around with her, and in his pathetic state it wouldn't take much to make her see just how badly he needs to be put out of this misery. She could finish him off, be his literal undoing.

"Hey, beautiful!" he cries out when she comes near enough to him, forehead creased. She kneels down. "Here I didn't think you noticed."

Pain. Pain, searing, bloody hell...bloody idiot for trying to laugh at the exact same time her hands search for a wound. Wincing, he snaps his eyes shut and feels around until he can flatten her hand out, flatten out the ungodly amount of pressure from her fingertips.

"Your ribs are broken," she says.

"That must be why it hurts when I laugh." Life seems to pour back into him. He can lift his head. His eyes scan around her for Rumpelstiltskin, Mr. Gold...gods, how cowardly to go by a new name here. If anyone will put him out of his misery...

"Did you see his face? His one True Love gone in an instant! Just like Milah, crocodile! When you took her from me!"

The crocodile limps toward him, face cold and steely. Good. Marvelous, even. He can prop himself up on an elbow now, that's it. His vision zeroes in on Rumpelstiltskin, the last sight he will see, just as he always knew it would be.

"But you took her first."

He's not quick enough to respond, the monster's good leg up and kicking him in the face. Done. Whatever jolt of energy, whatever magic that had coursed through his veins seconds ago evaporates now. The weight of the cane presses down on him like a stack of stones; his hand can't even manage to swat at it. Swan and the man's voices, her father, are reduced to sharp, incoherent background sounds. Then it all goes black...

"...hey, hey, come back, buddy. It's not that bad."

His eyes snap open to a man in a dark blue jacket kneeling over him, another one running up to them. Swan is all over the place, walking here, walking there, and the only reason he can see her is because of her hair swishing this way and that.

"No, take Belle with you!" she calls over to...why bother, he thinks, the man's face right by him fuzzy enough. "Mary Margaret, take Belle and ride in the driver's ambulance. She's not going to want to ride with Gold right now. David can ride with Gold to the hospital. That's his car." There's a pause, and then her voice grows louder. Probably because she's now standing over him. "Okay, I'll meet you there."

Her hair swishes again, this time in the direction of the man. It's not that he can see him better, but he can feel them binding him in something.

"No, no, he wasn't part of the curse. He doesn't understand what you're doing. Talk to him. Please," she says in one breath. One of her hands takes out the noisy little device she was talking into earlier when they lift him on a cot with wheels. Her back is to him and yet her other hand runs gloved fingers through his hair, too rough to be soothing, and yet it keeps him from blacking out again.

"Okay, just tell Dr. Whale to get everything ready." Stuffing her phone back into her pocket, she turns to him. "These people are taking you to the hospital where they're going to take care of you," she says right before she tells the man to get into whatever an ambulance is.

It's all still blurry, but he can tell he is inside, or at least completely out of the night air, somewhere with brighter lights. Like riding in a carriage, he thinks, a cramped, blinding carriage on a bumpy road.

"It's mostly some contusions and broken ribs, Sheriff," one of the men says to Swan. "I've seen a lot worse."

"You have?"

"Well, not here. That's just curse stuff, you know, the fake memories. But back home, some of the things people can survive from ogre attacks..." he laughs.

"I don't need to hear it," she says and then looks back down at him just as he's trying to focus on her face a little more. "Hey, hey, don't pass out now." She slides her fingers through his hair again, hard enough to angle his chin into the air. Blinking, he tries to summon up enough energy to smile. She does it again, just a little slower this time, a gentler reminder that he's still alive. There is some background noise again, tidbits of it indicating it's in regards to the operator of the vessel. He should fade away, should let them concentrate on the poor unlucky bastard, but another stroke clears those thoughts out of his head, a whispered "you're going to be okay," tingling in his ear.

* * *

Coughing, he sits up, grimacing at the pain in his torso after doing so, although it is considerably less pain than before. He'd had dreams, dreams of the past and present fused together in swirls of red and black and now it all feels hazy, a lost memory. He didn't care much for dreaming anyway, especially ones that left him gasping and shuddering, and not in the good way.

It registers too slowly. Gods, how he wishes his senses had been up to the task of observing Swan at the foot of the bed before he'd opened his eyes. Just still and watching, the minx.

"Where's Cora?"

To hell with that, he decides, ready to swing his legs over to the side of the bed and depart. Ah, chains. Woman thinks of everything.

"Again? You're really into this, aren't you?" he whispers it, remembering tears welled up in his eyes, cries of anguish—maybe he hadn't wanted to wake up alone. Waking up chained, however, he could do without. He pulls once more and is less than astonished to find the action futile. "Damn, that hurts."

"Told you. You cracked a few ribs." She stands, towers, right over him, and damned if he will again let her best him. Hook gone, some fluffy white robe—he would not bend to her will and lose all remaining shreds of dignity.

"Where's Cora?" she asks again.

"You look good, I must say, all 'where's Cora' in a commanding voice. Chills." Throw in a smirk there for good measure, mate.

"You have all sorts of sore places I can make you hurt."

Well, who's being the forward one now, Swan? Let's have a drink first, shall we? Picking up where we left off on the beanstalk, I see. Grinning, he decides the coat she's in leaves too much to the imagination. Without warning, she pushes her hand into his ribs, all the pain from her hand on them before returning in full force. And a satisfied little smirk, he notices. Last time he goaded her into anything, to be sure.

"I have no idea where Cora is. She has her own agenda." He didn't need his eyes open to feel her scrutinizing stare. Go on then, love. Assume I'd be idiot enough to lie to you and earn another little push. To be fair, he theorized yesterday when Cora disappeared that she'd go wherever Regina was, but let the sheriff figure that one out for herself. "Let's talk about something I am interested in—my hook. May I have it back?" He honestly loves the expression she answers him with, that incredulous "did you really just say that" face that never fails to reveal he'd ruffled her feathers. "Or is there another attachment you'd prefer?"

"You're awfully chipper for a guy who just failed to kill his enemy, then got hit by a car."

Well one does need to steer conversation so it is on one's terms and not someone else's, am I right? He spouts off some gibberish about things not being so bad while his mind proceeds to debate whether she would have brought his hook in with her, in a pocket, for instance. With no idea how long he'd been unconscious or how much Belle or the injured man had taken up her time, it was anyone's guess. "Plus I did some quality damage to my foe."

"You hurt Belle!"

"I hurt his heart. Belle's just where he keeps it." Come now, Swan, you admitted to being in love before. You ought to know. "He killed my love. I know the feeling."

He decides he doesn't like this satisfaction smile she has, at least not when it's at his expense. She leans in a little closer, her weight on one arm.

"Keep smiling, buddy," she says. "You're chained down. He's on his feet. He's immortal, has magic, and you hurt his girl." How his blood boils at all those words. "If I were to pick Dead Guy of the Year...I'd pick you."

Nice to be picked, he considers retorting, but he can't speak. No mere comeback could suck the truth out of her words. No mournful gaze in any realm could rival hers, her eyes and smile hardening like she had just decided to pretend he was already dead. She leaves without another word, just himself and his broken body, broken soul.

* * *

After he'd tired of watching people pass by his door and then tired of the information box's current fascination with an intense skunk-like creature with claws called a honey badger, he positions the bed back and stares out the window. The first red lines of sunrise peek out from behind the treeline, one of the few things about this world that seems remotely familiar.

"Hey."

Bedraggled, drooping Swan...not quite staggering into his room, her coat draped over her crossed arms. He raises an eyebrow, locking out an elbow so as not to even rattle the bonds trapping him in this bed. She pays no heed to his arm, wrist, plopping down at the foot of the bed just as she did before. Sighing, she shakes her head, not at him, but at herself, like she'd wrestled with herself once or twice before coming in, like she had almost given up and was well on her way to somewhere else. Her own bed, most likely. She stifles a yawn.

"So I have to ask an insensitive question," she finally says. Thousands of responses swim around in his mind, each one leaning towards the lewd side, and yet he finds himself staying quiet. "Do you think he saw anything, the man who hit you?"

Exhaling, he slumps. A question he couldn't answer.

"I know," she says. "Impossible for you to know." Her grip tightens on her coat, lips tucking into her mouth before she settles on an ironic smile. "He's okay, thought you might want to know. The sooner he gets out of here, the better."

Everyone's paranoia isn't quite unfounded. From what he could glean, Storybrooke is an anomaly, a little pocket of magic hidden from an entire world that runs on some other sort of fuel. Books in his own cabin hinted at beings from other worlds possessing an entirely different set of basic building blocks. Perhaps she feared the physicians here stitched the outsider up wrong, or that something in her appearance...as she also was from the Enchanted Forest...something in all their appearance would appear off to this man somehow. Then she, her family, and everyone would be at the man's mercy. Everyone including himself.

"I could find a way to get him out of Storybrooke." A bemused little turn of her mouth prompts him to continue. "My ship is faster than any vessel here that he may or may not be so talented at controlling."

"Nice try, but your ship is magic. That's kind of what we want to keep a secret from him."

"Let me finish, love. I come along, no hard feelings about being pummeled by his...car, is it? So we go out for drinks as new friends are apt to do. I help his inebriated ass to my ship and haul him back to wherever he lives, leaving him to wake up in a most disorienting state the next morning believing all this to have been a dream." His tongue slides into his cheek, and yet now that he's said it, he wants it. The chance to explore this place, fully immerse one's self in it, sail its uncharted waters and then return having done everyone a service. Oh, they wouldn't want to thank him, but gratitude often shines through in surprising ways.

"And then when you get back here, you just wind up going back to all this revenge business?" she asks, with some resignation, he notes, as if he might have tempted her just now.

"You could turn a blind eye to it."

"Not if Gold presses charges, I can't!" she blurts, her tone harsh.

"Then just what are your plans for me when I'm released from here?" Now is not the time for anything suggestive, but he can't resist. "The shackles can stay as long as neither one of us wears all these clothes."

"Likeliest scenario, you're formally arrested and face some serious jail time. It sucks, I know," she sighs. Her eyes dart around the room. At last she stands up and begins to put her coat on, resting her cheek on her scarf while she fastens the buttons. "He's got to get out of here," she mumbles, lost in her own head for a moment. "Something terrible's going to happen if he sticks around." She looks at him, right at him, in disbelief, eyebrows up in the air, mouth tight. For show, he glances from side to side because such a look is most certainly _not _the result of something he said. "You're not going to say that's crazy?"

"Should I?"

"Well, there's no concrete thing anywhere that dictates he's going to start trouble..."

"Just who are you arguing with here, Swan? I offered to dispose of him for you." He'd sit up to stress his point, but that required holding down on the button that raised the upper half of the bed for a countless number of seconds, and he is in no mood to lose any more dignity at the moment.

"It's nothing," she whispers, looking toward the door.

"Instinct's not 'nothing,' and I'm under the impression you're rarely wrong." He shoots her a smile and pouts just a little when she won't return it. For a truly absurd moment, he wonders if the whole reason she'd come in the first place was to bounce her thoughts off him, pragmatic in a way, flattering in another. After all, he hadn't created this situation. The man in the vessel would have run into a tree or into another person further into the town as he apparently didn't know the first thing about operating such a device. Therefore everything would have been exactly the same... Forgetting the woman in another bed somewhere in here who can't make heads or tails of who she is? Bad form, Killian, he chides himself.

He's created more situations than he'd care to admit. His head falls back against the pillow.

"Go home. Rest...Swan." Swallowing, he angles his head until he faces the window, much more of the sky covered in pink than before. He'd almost called her Emma, which was out of the question now, what with all the formality his ultimate punishment here would be if her words were true. Just as well, he thinks, not sure he likes what saying her name does to him. It gives a fervent, significant, needful sense to everything. Rolling his eyes at her blurred reflection in the window, he turns back to face her. "I'm not going anywhere. He's not going anywhere, and the more you hover over him the more he'll suspect there's a reason for you to do so."

This placates her, a fraction. He can tell thanks to her stance changing, a transfer of weight.

"You get some rest, too," she says.


	12. Snow White and Prince Charming

After a short nap, Killian awakes to another covered tray, his information box shut off for him. Not that the moving drawings with all the splashy colors lack intrigue, but he needs a moment's silence. If he lifts up the lid and finds more of that wobbling blue...Jello...well, the easiest solution to that would be simply pushing the call button and asking for something more edible. Surely this place would understand. In his experience, the unhealthy required nourishment and this place, the hospital, seemed to have more experience with sickness and injury than he did. A new day in a new land, he thinks with an eye roll. Lifting the lid, he finds scrambled eggs, two thin, malleable strips of bacon, and a piece of toast. He checks the slip of paper tucked underneath the plate. The menu confirms his observations along with the reveal that the beverage in the white container is milk. With an exhale, he picks up his fork. At last, something in his favor.

"Hi, sorry to bother you!" Linda strolls in, his nurse. Not his, but the corridor's. A competent, rosy little wisp, she buzzes around the room like a hummingbird before hovering over him. There is a black wad in her arms.

"It's no bother, lass. I was just starting breakfast. Is that my coat?"

"Yes, you, uh, have some visitors. They're coming up."

"Visitors?" Swan with more questions, although now that he thinks about it, Cora and Regina would be just as likely, albeit far less pleasant, an alternative. He closes his eyes for a moment trying to imagine Liam finding him in a place like this, clucking his tongue, but with a smile, and warning him about looking both ways before going out into a street. Linda shuffles from foot to foot.

"Good news! You get released this morning!"

"Linda?" She's dashed out of the room right at the same time Snow White and her husband enter, quiver full of arrows and all. Stupendous.

"Get up. Get dressed. You have work to do this morning," the man says, suddenly tossing Killian his coat and clothes.

"I see your observation skills are sorely in need of a good polishing." He rattles the handcuff, enough slack for him to eat this time in spite of the fact it leaves him incapable of dressing himself.

The man smirks at this and holds up a key like it has become the solution to all of life's problems. No one bothers to say anything when he crosses over and unlocks the cuff.

"Now if there won't be anymore objections," the man begins, crossing his arms. "We can get started."

"And just why would I help you do anything?" Too new to this world to be able to detect any law or custody-related tricks up their sleeves, he instead focuses on climbing out of bed. After flicking his wrist around a couple of times, becoming reacquainted with freedom, he holds onto the rail and attempts walking. There is a soreness clinging to every part of him, tension where there should not be. He's been in his share of scrapes, but the last time he limped like this...he sets his jaw. The last time he limped like this, the damned crocodile had been to blame and he'd had to hobble back to his ship with Milah guiding him the whole way.

"My belongings? If you please?" He holds out his shorter arm so he can still grip the rail. The man, the prince, throws his trousers, shirt, and doublet over his arm like it's a clothesline. No hook. Of course not. He heads into the small washroom attached to his room, already cursing the day.

"Hurry it up, Hook," Snow calls to him from the other side of the door. "Leroy's meeting us at the docks."

He curses the day one more time.

* * *

Storybrooke alternates in his mind from serene to dismal, today firmly rooted in dismal. He can't quite explain why. It's not for the lack of water, nor a lack of trees. There does seem to be a perpetual nip in the air, but he's traveled to places just as brisk, if not more so. Highlands, wintry tundras...it's not the climate. To distance himself from his aching body, he ponders the notion that the amount of magic has something to do with it. But then Cora had known from the start magic permeated the air here, so that couldn't be the case, either.

Their motley party reaches the docks, the breeze always cooler by the water. The gulls flap nearby, the occasional strong wave hits the hulls of the ships, and all the other familiar sounds do nothing for him at the moment. Perhaps the reason for that lies with the mutterings going on behind him.

"You didn't even ask me about my recovery," he says to no one in particular. However, he cocks his head in Snow's direction as she's closest, bundled up in dark cold weather gear that only accentuates her pale face. She's caught up to him.

"How are you feeling, Hook?" she asks. So forced. So reluctant. After all they'd been through...

"Come closer and feel for yourself," he teases. A prompt jab in the ribs by the Prince puts an end to that. First chance he gets, he'll find a place to hide, uncertain time in the Storybrooke jail will be any better than any jail in his own world.

"You want to lose the other hand?" the Prince barks. Ah, so all the snappy remarks back at the hospital had been the man's version of tact. "Where's the ship? Come on, Archie told us it's shielded somehow, isn't it, mate?"

First chance he gets...

"Aye, that it is." Bloody wonder all these forced truces hadn't been the death of him, his chest still feeling the jab. "Follow me. I don't know what you expect to find. Cora won't be there."

"Maybe she left something behind that will tell us where she went. Let's go."

Aside from the push, the needlessly rough push, something in the Prince's tone, in this sureness he has that Killian would very much like to punch out of him right now, reminds him of someone. He laughs it off. Going to let a bad day insult Liam now, are we? Liam didn't need to shove anyone. One look sent sailors off to their responsibilities. Shame for even trying to compare the two, he told himself, suddenly frowning at whatever had triggered the memory in the first place.

"And no funny business. I'm watching you, pirate."

"Yes...dwarf..." So the Prince, Princess, Pirate, and Dwarf go gallivanting off to the docks...ought to be the start of a shanty rather than reality. "That should deter me from any malfeasance." And yet he's stopped right where the Jolly Roger lies. Of all the silly little songs he knows, this one in the making tops them all.

"Oh, don't worry, Leroy. He'll help us," Snow says with supreme confidence.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because you're a pirate. You know which way the wind blows, and right now, it is _gusting _toward us."

She looks so much like Emma. Swan. Family resemblance never exactly hides itself and yet it's uncanny now, now that the mother is angry. He feels a wave of superiority in dissecting them, her parents, standing side by side. Her mother in every way but coloring.

"I see where your daughter got her gumption."

Well that put quite the unsettled expression on the Prince's stupid face, not that he hadn't seen that kind of expression before. He corrects his earlier statement; she has her father's coloring and tact.

"Follow me," he says, stepping up on the Jolly Roger. Hello, old girl. He takes his time inspecting it, dragging his feet against the wood. After all, it's been more than a day. The others' legs are shakier, due to the shielding spell, he supposes since they aren't going anywhere.

"You sailed this ship from our land," the dwarf, Leroy, mutters to himself. He turns toward him. "Can you sail it back?"

He needs to rest against the ship, the walk draining whatever energy time at the hospital gave him. The ship doesn't mind, never has.

"My ship?" A cursory glance at the rigging, the masts, the sails—it's a town full of people without a home, trapped here, knowing they're trapped here, which is worse. Twenty-eight years of nothing changing around them, of not seeing anything beyond the borders, and then for all the blessed and cursed memories to flood back into their brains...it had to feel liberating and burdening at the same time, the future immediately more frightening. "She's a marvel, made from enchanted wood. We weathered many a storm together, seen many strange, glittering shores. But to travel between lands, she must go through a portal." And a portal, sadly, no one here has. Everyone trapped together, homesick. Just what, after completing his revenge, could he do here? What did any of them do here?

After revenge?

"Yeah, what do you know about Cora's plans?"

Since the Prince is not in the mood to allow any further attention to this quandary...he stops at the crate.

"Cora's not the most communicative of lasses. I will tell you this—whatever malice she has in mind, her weapon of choice is in here." He taps the crate, blanketed. Why had she left him in here? The idea of Cora returning to the ship, even just to claim Anton, leaves all of Killian's wounds throbbing more. They remove the coverings to reveal the giant still sleeping, his head resting against the bars. Not the most comfortable way to travel, friend, but it surely beat staying atop a deserted beanstalk. Of course, now he is as trapped here as anyone else. Killian shakes his head at this. Something tells him Anton just might prefer companionship to freedom.

"Who's that?" Snow's weariness betray her suspicions.

"An acquaintance of sorts. This, milady, would be a giant."

"So Cora used magic to make him travel-sized," Leroy marvels.

"Whatever she intends to do with him, it's important." The Prince edges toward him, and it's all Killian can do to not lash out at him. Not on his own ship. Not while he's still injured. Not when bloody Rumpelstiltskin is alive and well and festering in some other corner of this world. The good Prince can go take a long dive into shallow water.

"Oh, I think you know exactly what she intends. You're holding out."

"Well, either have your lovely wife torture it out of me, which I promise will be fun for both of us..."

The Prince holds him by the throat, not tight, not lethally, but with purpose.

"Why don't you and I have some fun?"

On a good day, without a limp, sure, he thinks, sizing him up for a moment. It's a body that possesses strength and skill, although probably not much more than his own on a good day, which this is not.

"I don't know what she's planning. Why don't you wake the bloody giant and ask him yourself?" He extends the key to the crate, keeping one eye on the gangplank. He can't move fast, but he can move quietly. Snow works the lock as her husband's attention slowly gravitates to the crate. Another time, love, he bids to the ship, listening to Snow soothe Anton. Back down onto the pier, he could hobble to one of the alleyways not too far off and summon Cora. Bloody hell, he had hoped they could go their separate ways here, but he'd take the witch over jail. Then he could exact his revenge at last.

And then what?

One thing at a time, mate, he tells himself, turning just in time to see Anton knock the Prince flat onto the deck. He always did like that giant, he thinks with a smile.

* * *

It hurts so damn much. He can still see part of the Jolly Roger and the walk still manages to be agony, as does bending over to place the playing card on the ground.

"Hello, Hook."

Shit.

"Regina." He's heard the stories. Actually, calling them stories would imply they ring with little truth. He's heard facts of the Queen tearing out men's hearts for treachery, even perceived treachery, and then rendering them her puppets, unquestionably carrying out her orders, any orders, always knowing she could crush a heart into a fine powder any time she wanted. His mind scans everywhere for a way to leave the alley with his heart. The only way a woman could get away with taking it is if he gave it to her himself.

"Expecting my mother? The one you were supposed to kill?"

Think, damn it. Regina knows Cora is here. Good. Cora's contacted her then. Twenty-eight years could have been a long enough time to throw previous murder attempts and what had to have been a brutal childhood out the window in favor of reconciliation.

"Oh, that. Well, I didn't want to deprive you of a happy reunion."

"Well it's your lucky day. She and I have made amends." And decided our first order of business is to kill you, he can hear her say.

"And you're here to thank me. How sweet."

"She wants to know if they found the ship."

"Well you can tell her she can ask me herself." Idiot! Stop! You provided her passage and now have nothing to offer! No leverage! He shuffles a little, as he always does when his nerves threaten to overtake him. She cares whether they found the ship. Why? The only thing left...is not a thing. He can survive this.

"She decided it wouldn't be prudent for her to be out and about."

Storybrooke agrees with the Queen, her hair shorter and freer, her new attire somehow more appropriate for a funeral than her regal gowns. He nears her.

"Well then it is my lucky day, and you can tell her they found the ship."

"Did you get her things off it?"

Bloody hell, what is this? Captain Hook suddenly Errand Boy? He closes his eyes, silently counting to ten. He had no way of knowing where Cora had gone or what she'd been up to, so naturally she and Regina had not been keeping up with his own movements.

"I've been tied up in bed. Not in the good way," he adds, smirking at her.

"She needs her things."

"Oh, I'll bet she does." Just poof them to your hideout with all this infernal magic of yours, or better yet, walk over and start unloading the ship yourself since you seem to be short on henchmen around here. He glances back at the Jolly Roger, checking on her. "Well there's good news then. A giant got loose from the hold."

"You lost a giant?" He doesn't care much for women who show amusement via sneering.

"Well, a shrunken giant."

"How is that good news?"

"Because." He smiles. Oh yes, he will survive this alleyway just fine, maybe even with a spring in his step he didn't have beforehand...but probably not as he needs to sit or lean against something here soon. "When he got free, he took one look at the Prince and became extremely murderous."

"Hmm." Again, amusement with a sneer, just not at him this time. "A giant in town who wants to kill the Prince." Endearing how she says it like she unleashed him herself. "This is just the distraction we need."

"That it is, dear."

* * *

**A/N: Not too many notes on this one. Just don't own the show and am sooo excited about next Sunday! Updates may not be as frequently, probably down to once a week or so after the premiere. Coming up? Among other things, Hook learns how to operate the shower. You're welcome.**


	13. Miles Away

"...the bathroom's right here, towels in here." Regina opens the linen closet for effect, a stack of thick fluffy towels at eye level, washcloths and hand towels right below, rolls of some kind of soft paper underneath that. He reaches in and gathers supplies.

"Thank you. I believe I'll bathe and then retire."

"Oh. Fine. Just...follow me." She opens the next door into the bathroom, a bold blue and red room decorated with what appears to be a man in red webbing with a spider emblem on his chest. "It's Henry's bathroom. Spider-Man. Popular story here." She pulls back a curtain to reveal a tub, but holds out her hand in a halting gesture. "Hold on. Let me show you how it works. I really have no interest in coming in and finding out you've slipped and cracked your head open." Leaning down, she turns a knob and water pours out. "This direction warms the water up. This direction cools it down. This thing here..." She pulls up on a lever where the water is coming out and all of a sudden, it shoots down from above like rain. "Turn the knob all the way this way when you're finished. Soap's right there."

He stares at it while she leaves, closing the door behind her. Removing his clothing, he extends his shorter arm into the bathing area and lets the manufactured raindrops hit it. Perfect temperature. Stepping in, his eyes adjust to the dimmed lighting and he lets his head fall back so the drops hit his face. He smiles. One could get used to this. It feels like an eternity since he's been able to luxuriate in a bath, or whatever this is called. Hot, but not too hot...one could fall asleep in here. His muscles relax. His smile grows into a grin as he turns to let the water hit the back of his neck. The size, his skin slick, the soft lighting, the sensual nature of the whole thing—it could be an ideal place for more than bathing or falling asleep, he thinks with a quiet laugh.

* * *

The boy owns no less than fifteen clocks, he observes, pacing around in Henry's room, grinning at the odd assortment of books on the shelf, most of which look to be standard children's books. However, quite a few boast the thickness and somberness of works meant for adults, and then a number of them tell their story in pictures with little bubbles of words above the characters' heads. A globe of this world sits on top of the shelf, a stack of games on the bottom.

Henry apparently took this room and made it his own. Amidst the royal blue striped wallpaper, he's hung news reports and advertisements of town activities. A few...realistically done renderings of people hang on the wall, too. Little rectangular pieces of paper, too thin to be canvas, have almost captured Regina in various moments in time, holding a small toddler on a swing, another of the two of them gardening and covered in potting soil.

There is a portrait of Swan...he's convinced these are not paintings...her head nestled close to her mother's, looking happy, looking clean and well-rested without worrying about how they would find their way home.

He draws his hand back, catching himself almost tracing the lines of her hair. Oh, he wouldn't be able to deny she's beautiful, that she really would have made a hell of a pirate, that she is singularly fascinating, but anything more—well, that rather cheapens this entire revenge endeavor, doesn't it, he asks himself. Three hundred years or yesterday, it makes no difference, Milah died so needlessly, her eyes gazing up at him like he could do something at the last minute to save her.

Turning away from the portrait, he slides into Henry's bed, the only one left available in the house. On the bedside table, he had set up toy men, no more than a few inches long, next to a light box with silhouettes of unicorns and moons cut into it. Overall, he would have to admit he has a positive impression of the boy.

And therefore, Swan hates him. How could she not? If she had trapped him in a cell with no discernible way to return to his child, he'd hate her. Even if he could count her abandoning him on the beanstalk as a valid reason to walk away from her and convince himself her pleas about being with her son fell on deaf ears, he'd still wronged Henry. Tossing over onto his back, he sighs. There's no use denying he does like Swan, even now, and he's fairly certain he'd like Henry...and that's how he treats those he likes. Worst human around, indeed. It exceeded bad form. If only she'd met him earlier, before all this, centuries before all this, on some mission with much lower stakes. If only she'd met him under those circumstances then...he smiles to himself. He'd probably be proposing marriage by now.

If he could just be in New York right now, he'd find a way to kill that crocodile, the coward, the monster, and then he himself could finally die having done a good deed. It is the happiest ending allotted to someone like him.

* * *

Already the day is off to an abysmal start, he thinks. Dreams he doesn't want to recall keep swimming sensual strokes in his mind, enough to where he nearly fell right out of Henry's bed. He blames the shower. Intended for just bathing—please. All it accomplishes is planting titillating ideas into one's head...not his fault at _all_ Swan's picture hangs right across from him on the wall. Drowsy and still in pain from the accident at the town line, of course his dreams would whip up her wet hair sticking to the shower wall, the drops of water hitting her bare throat and collarbone.

Dressing and preparing for the day, he had searched the rest of the upstairs for Regina and Cora only to find them sitting on a decadent bed discussing nothing other than Rumpelstiltskin's absence. Without knowing the first place to look...ah, but he does have a solid idea of the first place to look...for his hook. The new course of action is not to follow, but to remain here, confined, and search for the Dark One's dagger. When breakfast ends, Regina repeats, over and over, she knows how to commence that task.

He doesn't care for the centerpiece of wooden apples. He can't decide if he finds her perverse pleasure in her weapon of choice laughable or disturbing. Substituting what's in front of him for the image of a centerpiece of hooks at his own table, he decides it's disturbing. If any word defined this scenario, it would be disturbing. Cora sits off to his left, wearing a tight dark suit similar to her daughter's newfound style. Not exactly the sentimental images one conjures when thinking of a family breakfast.

He's been watching Regina pour a thick, sticky substance over the flat, bread-like circles on her plate. Mimicking her, he cuts off a piece with the side of his fork and stuffs it into his mouth. She went to great lengths here—the surprisingly delectable bread circles, fluffy eggs, fresh fruit. Gentlemen acknowledge the hospitality of others, he reminds himself, swallowing.

"What did you say this was called, Regina? It's quite excellent."

"Pancakes. Thank you," she says after a beat, smiling down at her plate.

"It's a shame you have to do your own cooking," Cora says. "I hope you haven't felt the need to instill the same skills in Henry."

"He likes it, Mother. We bake cookies all the time and make pizza together..."

"Some of the most respectable men I ever knew were cooks on ships," he says, siding with his hostess.

"I'm sure, Hook, but I think you'll find that Henry is better suited for much higher aspirations." Regina rolls her eyes, spinning her fork on an empty patch of her plate while Cora sips her juice and dabs her mouth with the napkin. "Speaking of the boy, Regina, I do have a theory as to where Emma's taken him. You see, I provided Rumpelstiltskin an incentive of sorts to occupy his time."

"Which is what?"

"A locator orb, in his shop, that will show him the location of his son," she says as if it was the most commonplace thing in the world. "Obviously he needed a guide who knew her way around what all is beyond Storybrooke and obviously Emma doesn't want Henry out of her sight. This leave us free to search for the dagger."

"What makes you think he doesn't carry it with him?" he finally asks, no longer hungry. It didn't occur to him earlier, but it does now. After all this time, Baelfire would see his father again. Imagine, he thinks, centuries of being free, only to have one's past come back and destroy everything in the present. Time does not heal all wounds and he doubts Bae will welcome such unexpected company. Cora's silence snatches him out of himself. "If it can control him, why wouldn't he simply take it with him, especially since he knows you're here?"

"I know him. It's still here."

"I propose we follow him then. Forget the dagger for the time being," he says, forming a fist, knuckles pressing into the table.

"Whatever for?" Cora asks, humoring him, he supposes.

"His son is one of the few people that knows the dagger even exists, which makes him a lead to follow." He argues with himself in his mind, finding fault after fault with that train of thought, but it makes far more sense to pursue that than to stay here, stuck, away from everything that matters.

"Are you insane?" Regina pipes up. He won't give her a moment's thought. She'll agree with whatever her mother dictates. "If we go anywhere and don't succeed in getting the son to say anything, let alone find him, all that does is tip off Gold, not to mention Emma, and who knows where she'll take Henry after that? Is that what you want?"

"Of course it's what he wants," Cora sips her juice.

"To have a chance at finding the dagger as opposed to playing an endless game of scavenger hunt here, yes," he replies. It could potentially work. The ship may or may not stay shielded, but the Jolly Roger can leave a harbor fast enough to avoid detection. Bae will still be angry with him, though, but he'd drawn information out of him before and could do it again with ease.

"Why would you want to risk Gold and Emma watching our every move?" Regina snaps, her face frozen in disbelief.

"Calm down, dear. Losing one's temper isn't becoming at the table. And to answer your question, because he has feelings for her."

He sets his fork down. Sets his jaw. Wants to pick up his glass by its delicate little neck and fling it into the wall.

"I thought we had already discussed that," he growls, calculating how long it would take to break every piece of furniture, turn over the table.

"We didn't, actually," Cora says as he channels this unprecedented amount of rage into his glare. "I'm sure the three of us can find a few leads right here to follow while Rumple is otherwise occupied."

"A few come to mind right now," Regina says once again, her head tilted like they just now entered her head. "Come now, Captain. Surely you understand the concept of voting, and it's two against one."

"I had the feeling it would be," is all he can say, devouring the rest of his meal.

* * *

Abysmal day indeed, he thinks with a groan, shaking his head and flexing his arms. The latter stiffen at his sudden burst of movement. A few books around him topple off his back onto the floor. Cora. Cunning witch took her daughter and vanished into Storybrooke, taking the map to the dagger with them. Still on his stomach, he props up his elbows and holds his head. Every time he's taken a step closer to the Dark One's demise lately someone surprises him with other plans. There will be no second chance with Cora, not now that he unlocked the map for them and helped bring her here in the first place. He uses the shelves behind him to haul himself up and stretches his back. Should have followed his instincts and left for wherever Rumpelstiltskin has fled to, he tells himself.

He finds the pawn shop without difficulty. Settled on the main street, if the light, non-threatening blue exterior didn't give it away, the large overhead sign with the man's new name on it did. He's locked it, along with hanging a "closed" sign in the window for good measure, but Killian's not a customer anyway. With nothing but a stone, he smashes one of the glass panels in the door and reaches through for the doorknob. Apparently security isn't something Storybrooke fusses over much.

For a moment, he just stands in the doorway and glances over the place, every inch of the walls covered with artwork, instruments, bits and baubles from the ceiling to the numerous glass counters. Books lay on top of other ones standing straight up on the shelves for lack of room. This Mr. Gold possessed so much jewelry that the strands and chains of necklaces winded around the black displays of bracelets and earrings. Candlesticks and teapots take up more room than they should, so much so he backs up and hits a baby's mobile, the glass unicorns chiming against each other. An orb lay on the front counter, off on its own. That has to be it. The red blotchy silhouettes must be land, a tiny spot highlighted. Hoisting himself up and swinging his legs over the counter, he finds even more shelves, these with papers all but spilling out of them. Maps. Dozens of maps with penciled-in routes. A gray line from a circled spot near the top right corner of one of the maps of...New England...leads to another circled spot further south, but not by much. New York. A grin slowly emerges on his face.

* * *

Evening in Storybrooke presents some semblance of a nightlife, people ambling down the main street on the way to the eatery there. Phone book in hand, he nods to himself for being clever enough to obtain the most useful tool of all. It's not a bad idea, really, a directory of every person in a town with at least two ways to find them. He stops at a corner apartment building not as well lit by the streetlamps as others, three stories tall. Stairs along the exterior of the building catch his eye, most likely an escape route in the event of a fire, but convenient ways out of a building also prove to be convenient ways into a building.

Climbing up, the stairs rattle. Bits of rust on the railing scrape against his hand. He stops at the window and finds it, like all the other windows in this town, unlocked.

It leads into a small loft—too small for even a bed. He stares at what appears to be a sofa that extends out into a mattress, plain red sheets and a quilt pulled over it. A wardrobe of sorts and a little table are the only other furniture, the door to the side ajar enough for him to see it's a powder room. He'll end his search here.

Creeping down the stairs, he finds the lights off, Snow and her prince prudent in at least that regard. He starts at a counter separating the kitchen part of this box of a residence from the dining area portion. It seems to be the central point, various keys and papers scattered around, not to the point he finds it cluttered, but to the point he finds it busy, lived-in. More of the finely-crafted square portraits also face this way, the same one of Snow and Swan from Henry's room in this one. He fights a smile at it while he rummages through the drawers.

Unsure how long the prince and princess will be gone, he moves to the bed portion of the box. Moving past the mismatched dining chairs, he falls to his knees and searches underneath the bed first. Nothing. He sifts through the clothes in the miniscule room that serves only as a storage place for one's wardrobe. Nothing. Crossing over to a living area, well, an actual sofa and a rug, he tips the books on the shelf forward to peek behind them. Nothing. Surely Swan hadn't disposed of his hook completely...he banishes such a horrible thought from his mind. Risking the ears of a neighbor, he bounds back up the stairs into the loft.

This is her area, and he should be kicking himself for not being entirely certain the second he walked into the place. No possible way would a woman like Swan live in a fully-exposed box where anyone could see what she was up to no matter which corner she withdrew into. A quick peek into the wardrobe proves it, that short leather jacket she wears hanging inside. No hook. He heads over to the railing and leans over, scanning the apartment for any signs he'd been there. There is another place to look, he reminds himself. He lingers near the window, staring at the sheets again, a deep scarlet shade of red that, on other nights, knows just how her light golden hair splays over everything, if she tosses and turns, if she dreams and how often, maybe if she even mumbles once or twice in her sleep. He has to go back out the window before he finds himself distracted again.

* * *

The sheriff's station, unlike everywhere else, is locked, the windows dark and latched to even prevent anyone from seeing inside. Its brick exterior reveals no obvious weaknesses or cracks. The walls will lead up to the roof, but even then he wouldn't be able to get in unless someone was up there to let him in. After trying to smash the glass and failing, he breathes a curse and makes one more attempt to pick the lock at the back door. Nothing. Impenetrable.

But that's where it is, he decides, pressing his hand against the glass and trying to peer in once more with no luck. He can bide his time, he thinks. Cora and Regina made it quite clear they had another idea of how to operate and it would be rather short-sighted of Swan to have taken the keys with her. What if some beloved resident of her town needed a sheriff's kind of assistance? She'd entrust them to someone, her parents his first choice, and he could count on at least one of them opening the place up for him tomorrow. Then he could be on his way.

* * *

At dawn's first light, Killian moves into position, by a gigantic garbage receptacle judging by the odor of rotting food emitting from it, and waits. He can't directly see the front door, but he will be able to tell if someone walks up the steps to it and unlocks it. He's barely slept and knows he will have to make a run for it to the ship before too many people see him. Tapping his satchel, he gropes the outside of it and feels his new tools tucked inside it—phone book and maps.

The prince walks up, whistling. Just another fine day for him, he thinks, any suffering the curse brought upon him paling in comparison to centuries of darkness. Sure enough, the man unlocks the door and steps inside.

Killian's run finds the balance between speed and stealth and he manages to edge through the door into a lit corridor where the prince has just turned off to the right. So he turns to the left, entering a room not yet lit, but spacious and professional looking, a few desks the only obstacles to an alcove even darker than the rest of the room. Sidestepping into it, he presses his back against the wall, but a glint of something captures his attention.

Bumping into a switch, the alcove suddenly basks in light. Bloody hell. He flicks the switch again, but spots the source of the glint before he does so—a long metal piece. Good for prying. He's walked into an alcove of supplies. Gripping it, he waits, shrouded again in the dark.

The day-to-day sounds of footsteps walking around and keys jangling ever closer. Leaning out just a little, he sees the prince remove his coat and hang it on the back of a chair. A tinkling sound seems to echo, like someone dropping a coin. Now or never, he decides, leaping out and coming face to face with the prince. He draws the metal bar over his head and swings down before the man ever had a chance to react. He falls splat to the floor in one hit. About time something went easily, he thinks, stooping over him to pick up the keys.

"Apologies, mate, but I think you have something of mine," he mutters, spying only one key on the ring that looks like it could fit into all the locks on the desk drawers. The first one he tries, the largest one, reveals none other than his hook, resting on the scarf he tended her hand with on the beanstalk. Attaching it back onto himself without a second thought, he starts for the harbor.


	14. The First Trip to New York

**A/N: Tomorrow's the premiere, guys! So excited to see how the second trip to New York will go! Also, thank you to all of you who have read. Hopefully for you, looking at the series from the point of view of one character has given you as different a perspective as it's given me. It's a credit to the show that we could technically do this with any one character and get a fascinating, FASCINATING, account of things we've already seen. Please let me know what you think of the story so far. I am in the middle of writing 3x2, so I promise you good things lie ahead!****  
**

* * *

He makes mental notes of the Land Without Magic Proper seeing as how Storybrooke seems to be its own entity. Too cramped for many of the metal carriages to zoom by, the people here in New York walk shoulder to shoulder, stepping on one another as they cross streets. No one notices anything about anyone, or if they do, they ignore it, even the naked man in just the hat and boots using his guitar to cover his genitals. "Welcome to Crazy Town," a man mumbled earlier and then proceeded to talk to himself about reptilian overlords.

The other popular way people arrive to New York has to do with the flying cylinders that silently cross the sky, leaving a white smoke trail in their wake. They look able to carry more people at a time than the carriages or even a ship, so he starts at where they make port. Easy to find, really.

Inside the "airport," everyone hustles dragging wheeled luggage around. He's come to expect the portable phones everyone has with them, so it no longer startles him when he hears a voice right next to him. They aren't talking to him, but whoever is on the other side of their conversation. Hundreds upon hundreds of people, he notes, pausing near the staircase that moves of its own accord. He will require guidance if he is to discern when the crocodile passed through here.

He walks up to a random counter to a woman with hair as short as Snow's, only a lighter brown, wearing a blue vest and red cravat.

"How may I help you?" she asks after eying him up and down as if she were counting his buttons.

"I was wondering if you could tell me how to find out if someone came through here earlier today, please." Throwing her his most dogged smile, he places his good hand on the countertop and begins drumming it.

"Oh, well, did they come through this airline?"

"I don't know."

"I could check if they flew with us today. Name?"

Oh, bloody hell. Mr. What Gold...Rumpelstiltskin would quickly have whatever this world's equivalent of the asylum workers chasing him.

"Emma Swan."

He can see her fingers move on little tiles with letters. How she does it so rapidly he has no idea, for they aren't in order. Rather, they lay in a random arrangement, but to this woman, biting her bottom lip, some new knowledge is entering her brain.

"You said today?"

"Yes, fairly sure it was today." Raising an eyebrow at him, she continues to peck away at the tiles but a little slower. Somehow he theorizes he should elaborate. "She arrived here with her, er, father and her son and I was supposed to meet up with them, but an emergency arose."

"You could have just called them. Reagan International Airport prides itself in doing all we can for our patrons' convenience. Full signal throughout the airport. We even have Wi-Fi."

"That sounds...accommodating," he tries. Seeing her nod, he sighs. He glances around while she continues to search for, what, he doesn't know. If she comes up empty-handed, he estimates one of these counters will have the necessary information. At least he avoided suffering in a long line like the one far over to his left. He easily imagines the same annoyed people behind him all deciding to incite a brawl at the same time.

"You are in luck!" she finally says. "Ooh, early morning flight. Yesterday..." The weary, suspicious...horrified look she gives him chills his blood. He's done something wrong...well, if he had really been planning to meet up with them, he's a full day late on rolling out the welcome wagon.

"Unbelievable!" he cries out. "They said today!"

"I'm sorry, sir. Emma Swan flew in on Flight...how exactly do you know them?"

"Oh, I thought I explained. They are on their way to see her, well, her brother. Me, I'm simply a friend of the family and we were all going to meet up and surprise this fellow since he and the father had a bit of a falling-out years ago and who knows what all he's been up to since last _I _saw him." Pausing, grateful he knows to mix truth into his lies...lying to a nice, helpful woman. Cad... Her eyes widen and her gaze shifts from looking at him like he's some criminal to like some puppy.

"Aw! An intervention! That's so heroic of you! I'll, I'll tell you what I'll do." She turns and gestures over to another woman on the far end of the counter. "Jan! Come take over for a second. I have to help this gentleman. Follow me. We can check the security cameras and see if they rented a car or hailed a cab or anything and that might give you a lead on where you can catch up with them."

"I'm very much obliged," he says.

* * *

The staff at the Sunshine Cab Company fail to live up to the connotations of their name, he thinks after spending a good hour there reiterating everything he told the woman at the airport, being sure to mention the term "intervention," although in what he was interfering was anyone's guess. The dispatcher, a scrawny, fuzzy-haired man, poured through log after log in search for the driver who ferried them around. A wonder he hadn't yet needed to display some evidence he knew any of them, a portrait or letter or something. A sprawling city like this, with more people than he'd ever seen, ought to be more discreet. Then again, if no one cares about the naked man with the guitar, discretion must not be highly valued.

After tracking down the driver, Killian repeats the story again, adding on this time that his presence is crucial for this intervention to be a success. That grasps the driver's attention and he rambles on and on about a sister-in-law who had been in dire need of the same thing a couple of years ago and "hadn't touched the stuff since."

And now, now, after spending more of his gold than he'd expected, he stands in front of a building even larger than the one that holds Swan's apartment, each window barred. Cocking his head at it, he deems the Land Without Magic a land of extremes, no middle ground to be found anywhere as the windows are either perpetually unlocked or barred. They are fond of hanging papers up on the exteriors, however.

It will be time soon. Digging into his pocket, he produces and uncorks the vial of dreamshade and dabs some onto his hook, a concentrated dose. It will spare the Dark One some pain, agonizing, prolonged pain, but the world needed to be rid of him long ago, and, he gulps, he himself will not survive this. As lax as this city can be with its windows and security, he won't be able to kill a man in public, in broad daylight, and walk away unscathed, and he wants to watch it. He wants to see the beast's face contort, his body seize and collapse onto the ground as the vein-like black poison replaces his blood.

Strangely, he sees Henry first, black little coat similar to his mother and...Bae. So, the lad has indeed grown up, chatting and smiling with the boy while Swan and the crocodile keep their distance, the latter he understands. If he'd ventured out here sooner like he'd wanted to rather than heed Cora, he wonders if warning Bae would have done any good—if he'd have tried to run. Perhaps he can die with a shred of honor, keeping the Dark One and magic out of the boy's, man's, life.

They go one by one into the building, and now he must cross the street if he is going to do this. He breaks into a run.

He swings the door open and knocks Swan to the side. Yet again she stands between him and his vengeance.

The wave of terror sweeping over Rumpelstiltskin's face doesn't quench his thirst quite like it should, but that's only because he isn't dead yet. Defenseless. Just like before when he'd had the nerve to board his ship and ask for Milah back, crippled and cowardly.

He shoves him right into the metal gate.

He hacks into him without hesitation, feeling the searing sensation of blood even through his hook. His eyes never leave him as he sinks to the floor, discordant throaty sounds emitting from his mouth.

"Tick tock," he says. "Time's up, crocodile. You took Milah, my love, my happiness, and for that I now take your life." The words spill out of him, hardly aware of them as they'd been pent up in his blackened heart for so long. His arm raised again, he will sink his hook into his flesh one more time before this world, one way or another, destroys him.


	15. A Hollow Return

**A/N: This chapter contains stronger language than usual. **

* * *

_"You're a fairy. You should want to leave more than anyone."_

_ "Oh yeah? More than you, Hook?" Tink can hold her rum, he'll give her that. Neverland's days grow shorter and shorter until it looks and feels like an eternal twilight. Soon, well, relatively soon, as in within the next fifty years more or less, it will be perpetual night, everything shrouded in starlight. He knows it has something to do with Pan, but the specifics escape him. He had thought before it could be attributed to the nasty little boy's mood and then eliminated that. Pan took too much sadistic pleasure in the suffering of others to stay in tantrum mode for long._

_ "As I said, you're a fairy. You live forever, don't you? There's always the unlikely possibility I could die here and be put out of my misery. You have no choice but to wallow here for eternity."_

_ "You and your death wish, Hook. Don't you have anything to live for?" She takes a swig while rolling her eyes and says it before he does. "Revenge. Don't remind me. Besides, the immortality of a fairy is a much more complex thing than I care to talk about right now." Swallowing, she grabs onto the rungs of her tree house ladder, content to call this moment in time bedtime for herself. "Here's a thought. Why don't you look into finding love again?"_

_ He laughs at her._

_ "No, really. Even people who may not deserve it can still experience it." Her eyes harden a tad, a grimace forming. "I once broke all the rules trying to help a woman find someone else who could understand her and accept her for exactly who she is. You know, True Love and all that it entails. Would have worked, too."_

_ "Would have," he repeats. "I take it from the way you speak you found her a little undeserving?"_

_ "Everyone deserves love, Hook. There are just people who don't appear to because they've given up on themselves."_

_ "I can't be unfaithful to Milah," he whispers. Her hand lingers on his arm._

_ "Milah's dead, and she would be crying her eyes out at what you've let yourself become."_

_ "Then leave me to my revenge and I can dry those tears myself."_

* * *

Killian's never really given much thought to the afterlife, always so much in the present to hold his interest, and yet waking with a splitting headache in a dark closet bound feels about as far removed from any kind of afterlife as he can imagine. His wrists have been tied to a pipe running down the wall with a thin white rope, no thicker than a clothesline. A ray or two of sunlight seeps in from a small rectangular window near the top of the wall, so he must be in a cellar. A slip of paper scratches the inside of his fist, but it will be too dark to read it. Stacks of boxes make for silent company.

Facing the door, he doesn't jolt when the lock turns. He does raise his eyebrow at a woman he's never seen before, petite and skinny but with an air of confidence about her. She wears the layered fashions of this land, her black hair bone-straight. Without taking her eyes off him, she pulls a string suspended from the ceiling, causing a bulbous piece of glass to glow, filling the closet with light.

"Get used to it," she says, entering further into the closet. "It's about a seven-hour drive from here to Maine and I haven't even gotten the call yet."

He doesn't know what she's talking about, but gets the feeling she likes it that way. Folding her arms, she sighs at him.

"What do you like to eat?"

"What do I like to eat? What the hell kind of question is that?"

"I'm sorry. What kind of question do you want?"

"Who are you, for one. Where is this? Why am I tied up? We can start with those and depending on how much I like the answers, we can go from there."

She snorts. "I'm Tamara, this is a storage closet, you're tied up because you're a loose cannon, and I asked you what you like to eat because you're going to be spending the night down here while I get everything together." It's as if she's already lost her patience with him, the way she rolls her eyes. "I'm Neal's fiancee, if you must know."

Neal? Just who is that? Oh yes, that does clear everything up quite nicely. Thank you. We can discuss your wedding plans over dinner and part as unlikely friends afterward. It's his turn to roll his eyes.

"So since you haven't said anything, that means I can pick you up whatever I want. I'll see you in an hour." She at least gives him the courtesy of leaving the light on when she leaves, although the clicking of the lock on the outside of the door disheartens him. Shuffling his fingers around so as not to drop the paper, he maneuvers it until he glimpses letters, a note.

_Took your ship to Storybrooke. Will take care of it. Stop throwing your life away. Emma._

Fury takes over. With indecipherable grunts and curses he twists and jerks every which way, lashing out at every conceivable direction. He can break the pipe if he struggles enough, surely. It's not that thick. He flicks his hooked wrist this way and that in hopes of slicing through the rope. There's no way to hit anything. There's no way to knock anything over, so he kicks the nearest stack of boxes, sending them tumbling over each other. He continues to kick at them once they're on the floor, hoping to smash every single one of the contents.

Spouting strings of words that would make respectable sailors blush , he throws himself forward, but the pipe holds. No! No, it will not hold forever. He can break it! And then he'll break her neck, stealing everything from him—his ship, his chance to see the fear on the crocodile's face just take over...it almost doesn't matter that the monster will be dead in a matter of hours if he can't bloody see it! Come on and break the damn pipe and get out of here!

The curses escalate to primal shouts, his thrashing more desperate and less coordinated. Why? Why, after so long, is this the way it is? Shackled in some cellar while the Dark One lies dying, with his long-lost son at his side, no less? Why, he screams up at the ceiling, staring right into the round light, although it comes out as a half-growl, half-sob. The cowardly, sadistic, murdering fledgling of a man gets power, gets a child, gets a woman who loves him—gets every, every opportunity to change his fate while he is meant to languish away in here, alone?

"Someone's going to call the police if you keep throwing a tantrum." The woman, Tamara, enters with a rolled-up bag.

"Cut me loose!" he bellows at her. "Now!"

"Yeah, no, I don't really want to deal with you loose right now. Here." She opens the bag and holds out some yellowy sticks. "Figured you'd never had these before."

He's about ready to kick them right out of her hand. Instead, he steps up to the pipe and kicks at it.

"That's not going to work."

"Either cut me loose or be on your way!"

"This is food. You might as well eat," she says.

Eat? Eat? Who can bloody eat when at this very moment Emma Swan is on his ship, _his_, loading Rumple-fucking-stiltskin onto it with Baelfire along for the ride? Brilliant, just brilliant. All the anger the boy harbored in Neverland will dissolve now, because that's what death does. It renders all the negative moments, the silly tiffs, the mundane annoyances, leaving one to only think of how much he loves the person about to leave him forever. He kicks the nearest box again. Fucking Bae. Fucking crocodile...

"It's in my best interest to keep you alive, Hook."

"All right. I think by now I deserve a few more detailed answers from you, starting with how you know who I am."

"It's not hard to figure it out," she sighs, more than a hint of disgust in her tone. "I know all about Storybrooke and the curse. Been working on that one for a long time. As for Neal, you probably know him better as Baelfire. Now these..." She holds the bag of sticks out to him again and pinches one by the end. "These are called fries and they're food. I don't personally like them, but they're easy to find when you need hot food in a hurry. If you'll let me?"

Curiosity trumps his dignity, so he opens his mouth a fraction so she can slip one of the fries into it. Salty, crunchy...he swallows. Rather obvious they're a quick food for those in a rush.

"Now if you won't kill me, I can at least untie you so you can eat the rest of these by yourself." She waits for him to nod. He'll allow it, freedom always an appealing option to a pirate. Besides, now without a ship, she may be the only way back to Storybrooke, just to witness proof of Rumpelstiltskin's death. Standing up, he stretches his arms over his head and accepts the bag from her. There's not much he finds appetizing about the fries, a few sporting brown tips, and yet the temptation to finish each one remains strong. A drink would help.

"Have a nice night," Tamara sings before rushing out the door and locking him in the storage closet.

* * *

"Up and at 'em, Hook. We have places to go and people to see," Tamara announces, pointing one of those weapons Belle had had...gun, at him.

"Something tells me I'm not going back to Storybrooke on my own terms," he says, bleary-eyed, feeling the bags underneath his eyes. Sleep did not visit him in spite of him losing track of the hours. He knows about two days have passed, but pent up in a room with nothing but boxes leads the imagination to wander.

"There's a U-Haul outside. It's a, a coach with lots of space for various items." Smiling at her own explanation, she raises the gun so it is level with his eyes. "I've got a chair for you in there. Now, you're going to go out there quietly without trying to run away and sit down in it. I took your maps and your gold, so just in case you do manage to get away from me, have fun trying to get out of here without any money or idea of where to go."

"What's this about?"

"No questions right now."

He remembers her telling him it is a seven-hour journey from here to Storybrooke and he takes that to mean via the U-Haul, which means any other way he could devise would take even longer. Gritting his teeth, he bows to her and lets her follow him out of the storage room and up a set of stairs. The sunlight in the apartment building's foyer blinds him. A gust of wind blows at him when she opens the door to the outside, chilling him to the bone. The gun now hidden in her pocket, he takes the liberty to observe everyone else walking around, bundled up in bulky coats and scarves.

"Climb in," she says, nudging him with the tube part of the gun. Lifting a leg, he steps into the vessel, loaded with boxes and black cases. Cords coiled up on hooks make up one wall, tables standing on end with the legs folded in the other. Sure enough, a chair awaits him. Something tells him he'll also be tied to it.

* * *

He sleeps more than usual, the rhythm of the moving vessel without a porthole lulling him more than he'd care to admit. Exhaustion, he tells himself, wondering if his ribs have even healed all the way. He wonders if Cora secured the dagger while he was away. If so, he and this Tamara will enter a war zone after seven hours of traveling, the unimposing little buildings nothing but rubble. Corpses will align the streets.

Baelfire's fiancee—ought to feel like an old man at that discovery, he thinks, stretching his neck to reach the straw lodged into the cup next to him. Just water, but it hits the spot in the stifling vessel. Baelfire all set to begin a new chapter of his life only for his father to burst in and then keel over. For the best, really. He imagines the Dark One as a father-in-law, as a grandfather. Bae would need to flee from him again for fear his child will suffer.

What had he thought of him after all these years? Killian snorts a laugh and shakes his head. Precious little did anyone's opinion matter now, least of all that of a boy from, how long had it truly been, centuries ago?

You loved the boy and you know it.

Ah, and then he chose to leave, to embrace untold dangers and the very unknown rather than be with him.

_Why do you think anyone who's ever gotten close to him has either run away or been killed?_

_You tore apart my family!_

Just like Bae's father—that's what the boy had said, that he, a Captain, a man once so committed to honor, shared similarities with the Dark One. Milah, Liam...but those hadn't been his fault, at least not in the same way Rumpelstiltskin was for what happened to Milah...but Bae, yes, he ruined that one.

* * *

_ He's told Emma he prefers more enjoyable activities with a woman on her back, and she still raises both her eyebrows in response, just like before, but now no one else occupies Lake Nostos except for the two of them. No arrows, no magic, no combat. They can take their time._

_ He can now spy her hand wiggling free like it did before. But this time, it lingers at her side while her eyelashes flutter up at him. Lowering his head, he presses his forehead into hers, almost hearing her eyelashes bat against her skin. Her breath cinches. Her arm links around his neck, pulling his lips to hers and instantly everything burns—his fingers because they're laced in hers, his ears because they hone in on every gasp and sigh purring out of her, his insides because his blood has turned to fire. The sensation of her now-freed hands shoving his coat off his shoulders brings an unprecedented sense of relief._

_ She drops her head, leaving his lips suddenly cold, only to flick her tongue around his chest to make his head spin. So close, his weight on her, his hand navigating its way across her scalp and through her wind-blown, sun-kissed hair. He kisses her again, done with this selfish exploration and now dead-set on removing every scar of pain left in her, on giving her everything he has in exchange for just a few moments more to inhale her and burrow himself into the crook of her neck..._

He wakes halfway still in his trance, fully expecting to feel sand and hair against his face, gasping for air. After Tamara refuels, she stops the vessel over in empty gray squares with painted lines to lift the hatch and give him something to eat. No worse for wear, she smirks at him and refuses to tell him what all lies between the two thin biscuit-bun things when she feeds them to him. Meat, that much clear, cheese, but also tangier, sweeter tastes. He finishes it, Tamara places the trash in a bag, and proceeds to lock the hatch and resume their journey.

He's ruined others, not just Bae, although that one hurt the most. Milah's son, after all, and he sold him, sold him like a slave to those who could do him harm. What's happened to you, Killian, threatening to torture harmless crickets and erasing a woman's memory? Captain Killian Jones would have kept his quarrel with the man responsible and him alone. A younger, more idealistic version of himself would have recoiled in horror at pulling out a person's heart.

As well as leaving people in a cell to rot.

Rumpelstiltskin's body might already be lowered into the ground, he thinks, feeling the vessel accelerate onto what he's heard her call the freeway. Dreamshade never fails and yet he's somehow still failed Milah.

_Stop throwing your life away._

Why not? That's what he would have asked had Swan, Emma, been there at which to spew out retorts. To live a solitary, dishonorable life? Too long he's gone without a glimmer of hope or a spark igniting. The people he likes he shoves into walls for nothing more than standing in front of his revenge. The people he likes he abandons in cells out of spite. Just what would Henry have done without Emma?

What would this entire world have done without Emma?

And now nothing keeps Cora from digging up the crocodile carcass and stabbing it with the dagger. With her as the Dark One, destruction will know no limits. Regina's objections will fall on deaf ears, well, after all the chaos fails to meet her approval. Snow and the Prince and their allies...he closes his eyes and snaps them back open at the very idea of Emma's heart going still...will die and Henry's weeping will be about as meaningful as Regina's pleas to be given some control.

_And to answer your question, because he has feelings for her._

He's stolen and pillaged, tortured and double-crossed, but he refuses to lie if he can help it, even to himself. Liking Emma in and of itself won't end the world, he decides, for he does like her, the naturalness of her above all her other fine qualities, how genuine she is. Everything from her beauty to the undeserved amount of pain she harbors to the way she chooses to interact with everyone around her boasts a naturalness to it, a sincerity. She speaks honestly about her sins and mistakes at the same time she displays no embarrassment or half-heartedness for all she upholds. What's not to like? Why can't he like a person? Why can't he smile when she does? It changes nothing, draws no irrevocable line in the proverbial sand.

The vessel screeches to a stop, hid body hurled against the back wall and then back to where it had been, the chair wobbling enough to render him anxious about tipping over. The hatch lifts yet again, but Tamara brings him no food.

"Last stop before Storybrooke," she says, crouching over to him with a cloth. "We've got to make sure you won't call out to anyone once we're in."

"Usually it's the lady that is the one to call out when I'm involved," he says with a grin. "Exuberantly."

"Uh huh, I don't know why I bothered to ask. No one to call out to. Oh, don't misunderstand me," she says as she begins turning the cloth into a gag, wrapping it around his mouth. "I'm pretty sure you don't have any friends in Storybrooke, but just in case there's someone willing to fight for you, they don't need to hear the cry for help, okay?" Laughing, she disappears and within seconds, the vessel resumes movement.

No one to care for, no one to fight for, he thinks, the words piercing him. It appears liking someone is the biggest upheaval that can be hoped for for the present, his ire now reserved for Rumpelstiltskin and Rumpelstiltskin alone.


	16. The Evil Queen

"Actually, I prefer with the lights on," he snaps, wondering where the lights...in addition to his sense of time...went. Mentally retracing his steps, he remembers their light sticks shining right in his face while still tied up in the vessel, Tamara and another man's smug words cryptic to anyone else, like two children sharing an all-important secret.

The sack he's just realized is over his face lifts off, his surroundings shadowy and unfamiliar. Storybrooke, he gathers, the glare from the street lights reflecting in the glass rounded panel in front of him, a clock. Rolling his tongue around in his mouth, he stares at the floor.

"I've spent enough time below deck to not be afraid of the dark, so if this is your idea of torture, well..." he trails off, letting her believe he's picturing her with far fewer layers. He's had just about enough of this Tamara. Poor taste, Bae, he thinks. I'd have thought you'd have gone in for a higher caliber of women. "You're just going to have to try a little harder."

"Torture you?" the man to his right repeats, all as Tamara stands silent and unflinching. "No, we just want to offer you a job."

Killian tries to tilt his head at the words, but the angle in which they've positioned him accompanied by the man's preference for keeping his distance makes it rather difficult. It's hard to tell with all the shadows and the man's hat, not to mention the infernal angle of the chair, but the man strikes him as familiar. So serious, the pair of them. True enough, the trip only allowed him to dwell on past regrets rather than an outline for the future, but working for two people willing to waste energy to the point of carrying a man up a clock tower just to propose a job is not his idea of a productive aftermath.

"And then you'll let me go?" he pouts, disrupting into a laugh. He means to let out one good, loud laugh, but they're bewildered expressions only add to the amusement. "Oh, I'm sorry. I already did that last job. I killed Rumpelstiltskin. I'm sated. Replete. My life's purpose met."

"Wish I could have been there," Tamara says. Oh indeed, he thinks. The more the merrier. "To see you stab the Dark One."

Is it truly supposed to shock him she knows who Rumpelstiltskin even is? Disbelief dominates her tone and while the way she carries herself and speaks does imply some competence in the field of violence, she and the man both strut in such a way that suggests something hollow about it, something false providing them their confidence and security.

"Well look who's up to speed," he comments.

"I'm a quick learner."

"Well then you know my work is done!"

"Yeah, I don't think so," the man says, reaching for him. He blinks, fully expecting a blow to the face, but instead he and Tamara drag the chair closer to the glass of the clock face.

"Take a look," the man snaps at the same time she produces his spyglass. Able to curl his arm up just enough to clutch it, he brings it up to his eye and follows an imaginary vertical line down until he can see the people walking the streets, just a few drunken socialites, if Storybrooke can claim such residents, but then he freezes at the all-too-familiar silhouette of a limping man in black with an adoring woman at his side.

"No," he breathes, squinting, sticking his head further out. Rumpelstiltskin, smiling and just strolling along the street with Belle. Happy, in love, not to mention alive.

"No!" he shouts. Cursed town that gave the Dark One this life, that just won't let him die! All of it, the storage closet, the mind-numbing journey back here—all of it pointless, fruitless...

"He's alive, Hook!" Tamara growls, snatching back the spyglass, pointing out the cruel, sadistic obvious. They drag him to his original spot in the tower, right down to the same angle, but he won't meet their gaze. He stares out of the clock until there is nowhere else to look but the floor. Bested, beaten...Swan. Took the ship with the lot of them back just in time to pull off some miraculous recovery, her vow to protect her citizens never to be questioned again.

"He beat you," the man spits, inches from his face, but he won't look at him, not yet. No, not Rumpelstiltskin. He knows precisely who beat him, again, and he seethes, seethes because he still can't hate her. "Now this guy has powerful magic, mate. He's untouchable. You'll never get another chance to take him down." Stuffing his hands in his pockets, the man stands back up to his full height, and Killian has been in enough altercations to know when another man is trying to assert himself over another...easy to do when one is tied to a chair.

"Oh, I will. I will indeed," he promises. The right way, no interfering in anyone else's life. Just him and the crocodile.

"Not unless we help you," Tamara says.

"How can you help me?"

For some reason, the little knowing look she shares with the man doesn't reassure him. It's like she's been waiting for him to ask that question ever since the storage closet, just itching to spout out rehearsed lines. With a crafty smile, she starts toward the man.

"We know how to kill magical creatures."

The Dark One isn't exactly a unicorn, he considers, but a quick glance at the man out of the corner of his eye tells him neither one aims to deceive him, that something of this world can perhaps trump magic, even the most powerful kinds. And yet, as much a scourge as Rumpelstiltskin is, neither seem to harbor a personal hatred for him, not a desperate thirst for vengeance. Not that the idea of taking down the Dark One merely for sport doesn't garner a twisted kind of appeal, but he will not be tearing out innocent girls' hearts for this.

"And the price?" he asks.

"I need you to help me find someone," the man says, finally with some passion. Tamara stays quiet, offering no further hints, so he speculates for a second. A loved one. "My father. He was taken in this town a long time ago." He's near tears, touching, but that gives Killian precious little to go on, especially if it were years ago.

"Why the bloody hell do you think I'll be able to help find your father?"

"Because you know the woman who took him. Regina."

Innocent girls' hearts is one thing, but Regina...in a way, he understands. More than in a way, a magical, powerful creature taking away a loved one as you can only helplessly watch it all unfold.

* * *

Without breakfast, they return his phone book to him, although he notices they have confiscated his maps. No need for them now, he thinks, using the last thin cover of darkness to locate the mayor's office. He'd checked Regina's house first, expecting to find an even more determined mother and daughter since the dagger was apparently not yet in their possession. He'd cupped his hands around the windows to peer in only to find more items out of place than before, even a layer of dust on everything, as if she hadn't straightened up for days.

Greg and Tamara clearly felt filling him on any Storybrooke news that had occurred in the last couple of days to be a waste of time, mentioning their "home office" did not approve of idle chitchat when there was work to be done. Supplying him with nothing but a portable phone small enough to fit in his hand, they dismissed him...that's right, he thinks on his way to the office. Captain Hook, always someone's henchman. And someone's idea of target practice, since Greg was the one in that vessel who hit him in the first place. He knew he'd looked familiar when he'd first seen him. In any other scenario, his hook would be dripping with the man's blood.

At the door, he hears some scurrying on the other side, the soft click-clicking of the shoes many of the women wear here. Opening the door, he finds Regina at her desk, standing stiff and flushed, always up to something.

"Captain!" she blurts, and he does find humor in the fact she is genuinely surprised. "You look like you've had a rough time."

"Indeed I have." You have no idea, he thinks, closing the door behind him. Limp's not even gone just yet. He's done wondering if that means his ribs will never completely heal, but when they protect a heart so...so lost now...he flings his arms up and then lets them drop at his side. Rumpelstiltskin must die, a fact as unchanged as ever, and yet this feeling of emptiness, of having no idea what to do with himself or wanting anything to do at all tempts him to run out of here, just run as fast as he can...not fast now thanks to said limp...but the tragic part is that he can think of nowhere for the run to take him.

"I've come to ask you for your protection," he says, noting the nervous way she glances at the side of the room, but he'll ignore it for now.

"From Gold?" He rolls his eyes, his failure apparently gossip now. Not that he fancies the Dark One to have many willing listeners at his beck and call to take in all his stories with rapt attention, but word of anything tends to spread fast in small towns and villages. "I'm surprised you'd show your face in this town once you noticed your murder didn't take."

"Well, we've got bigger problems. That man, Greg Mendell, the one who hit me the night I shot Belle...well he's in league with some woman. She abducted me in New York and dragged me back to Maine." Her dubious expression with more than a dash of apathy shouldn't last too much longer. "They want me to make an alliance with you and then betray you. That's why they let me go." Some form of anxiety now forms, he sees. Once again, trust is not always needed as long as belief is established. Present the terrible situation, then offer a way out.

"Now I say let's you and I make an alliance, and, well, skip the unpleasant betrayal business," he whispers, edging closer to her, mirroring the knowing look she gives him, just to clarify he distrusts her as much as she is questioning him now. She smiles, a feline sort of smile anyone with a bit of cleverness makes when suspicious.

"Why should I trust you?"

"I took up with your mother for a reason. Perhaps the three of us could reestablish our alliance."

"My mother died," she says after an eternity. Cora dead? That might have been helpful to know, certainly not in the same category as the "idle chitchat" Greg and Tamara so despise. He longs to ask for details, to find out just how close the witch had come to wielding Rumpelstiltskin's dagger, but another thought takes over—how much easier all this will be now that Regina answers only to Regina now...unstable, love-starved, separated-from-her-child Regina. Summon up grief, stupid, he commands himself. Oh, it would be a lie and an inhuman one at that to pretend he'd formed no attachment at all to Cora. After all, she'd been his only ally for what felt like ages, but he walked into that alliance fully expecting to die himself, either by her at-last-impatient hand or by the Dark One's. Her path, the pursuit of absolute power and control, made revenge look meager, and so it could only lead to success or destruction.

"Well that is sad news," he whispers to the floor. Shaking himself out of a forced shock, he looks up at her, taking in just how lost she looks herself. "I'm sorry. She will be missed." She turns away with tears in her eyes. "I will tell you this, Regina. I knew her well enough to know what she wanted most in the world was to see you win."

The tears still threaten to fall, to melt away this mask of detachment, and he refuses to relate. Relating to other people has not served him well as of late. His condolences expressed, like a gentleman, he must now bring her back to the here and now if he has any hope of this working.

"Now I failed in my revenge. The best tribute I can give her is to help you with yours."

The more he thinks on it, the more convinced he is that he will not find Greg's father alive. Regina possesses one of the most single-minded personalities he's ever known, her vendetta back in the Enchanted Forest realm-jumping news. It would take someone obsessed to cast such a curse to begin with, and while he hasn't been in Storybrooke long, the only objects of her obsession presently have been her mother and Henry. Not quite catching her words, he picks up on the gesture to follow her towards where her eyes had been veering since he'd walked into the room.

Bean crop. In her tiny glowing case. The Evil Queen a cultivator.

"An escape plan?" he asks. "She'd have loved that. She brought that giant for the beans, so she could go back and start over with you."

"Now I'm going to do that with Henry," she says, always handling the boy's name with such tenderness. "If you'll help me. This is how we'll escape the total destruction of Storybrooke if I can trust you."

"Now when you say 'total destruction,' including the crocodile, yes?"

"Oh yes!" she bursts, just the idea of it giving her a weightlessness. It feels the opposite to him, but now is not the time for any reflection. "Rumpelstiltskin will die if you help me."

"I think you already know my answer," he says, smiling.

"Good. We'll have to get going, though. What I need isn't here and this is something of a two-man job." She puts on her coat and gloves, the beans never too far out of her line of vision. He still struggles to see her as a mother in spite of spending a night in the lad's own bedroom. That she cares for the boy and needs to be with him, he believes, a witness to how she worries when he's not around her, but he doesn't see the same...hold on, mate, he steadies himself before following Regina out the door. Liking Emma is one thing, but you have not even seen her with the boy and let's not suddenly lionize the woman. But it feels different, just the same. Regina will kill for Henry; while he knows to a moral certainty Emma would as well, Emma would die for Henry. She lives for Henry.

Not for much longer if Regina gets her way.

There is time, he realizes, continuing to follow Regina down the main street back towards the library. He could always snag a bean once Greg and Tamara do whatever they plan on doing with Regina just in case. Hell, Emma will evade any sort of destruction even if he has to hoist her over his shoulder and run off with her himself. And Henry. And most probably the rest of her family.

Just before entering the library, he hangs back and pulls out the phone Greg gave him, the instructions on how to write...type...messages into it and send them to him etched into his brain. Without much time, he is able to form the letters that spell "library now" and hit the "send" button. That should alert them.

"Hook."

"Afford a man some slack, Your Highness. You forget I retain a limp."

"You need to be able to keep up with me here. We'll be underground," she says, opening the library door for him but rolling her eyes as she does so. Blinking, he steps into the library, dusty with the windows covered. If a place can miss a person, this one most definitely misses Belle.

"Just why is it a two-man job? Do you need me to lower you?" Wouldn't that be ideal, he thinks, staying up here when Greg and Tamara drop by, all of them just waiting for Regina to return and head straight for them.

"No, it used to be, before magic," she says, waving her hand to open the door on the other end of the room. It's not quite a difficult contraption to figure out, he thinks, although he still doesn't know what it's called. It lifts or lowers people via cables and probably a weight somewhere...a pulley somewhere...definitely no need for Regina to be patting herself on the back as she is, so he leans against the wall of the chamber and feels no need to brace himself when it lowers.

At last the gate in front of them lifts, whether by her magic or some pulley...no longer matters. His fingers twitch, each one wringing the other as he begins to wonder what is occupying Greg and Tamara's time that they aren't already rushing over here with all their bells and whistles they love producing to capture a magical queen. There's not much to look at, dark rocky surface as far as the eye can see.

"Do you ever wonder if this constant pursuit of revenge is the reason we have no one who cares for us?" He can't look at her when he asks it, noting how much pride ties itself to vengeance. Rumpelstiltskin has his obsessions, his sordid methods, but the core of his being is not concerned with any kind of payback to anyone. Much as he hates to admit it, spending centuries in search of one's son sounds a great deal more wholesome than spending centuries plotting murder. She does not respond. "I mean, when all this is over and I know the crocodile is dead for good and all...I'll have nothing to look forward to. My life will be empty." The words nearly pour out of him, oozing out of some crevice of his mind and no longer content to remain unsaid. Regina has slowed her pace. "Revenge may sate your being, but don't misunderstand me, my dear. It's an end, not a beginning."

"For you, maybe," she says after banishing a glimmer of fear. "But not me. I have Henry, and destroying Storybrooke, well, that seems like a small price to pay to allow us to live in peace."

A small price to pay. Winding around the dark maze like moles, he can only smile at her, a piteous one, given her delusions, so shortsighted she doesn't even question what the boy would think of her should she succeed, which she won't. How many times Henry must have run away, he thinks, for that is precisely what he would have done with the Evil Queen as his mother, by nature or not, so dependent on his presence to keep her from lashing out at everyone else. He doesn't envy the lad, no. It's time, he decides, extending his arm to motion for her to lead the way, her eyes following it all the way to his wrist just as he planned.

"Where did you get that?" She points to the cuff, her voice cool, reminding him of a lid placed over a boiling pot. For effect, he turns his wrist over and inspects it. "It belonged to my mother."

Yes, and you don't even have a clue as to what it really does, do you?

"Yes, well, she enchanted it so I could climb the beanstalk." His hook pulls back more of the sleeve of his coat, a more honest smile threatening to grow into a grin. "She..."

"I don't care why she gave it to you," she snaps. "It was hers and I want it back."

Despite having no idea what it does, he almost wishes he could sing out. Even Cora had refrained from putting it on once she gave it the ability to repel magic. Too easy, he thinks, a smirk just on the cusp; he'd second guess himself if it were anyone else. But this is Regina, frightened, petulant little Regina—too preoccupied with being someone's child to truly mother anyone. With just a hint of a shrug, he decides to toy with her.

"You plan to blow this town off the map and you're worried about a scrap of cow hide?"

"She was my mother!"

"But she was my friend."

"Hardly," Regina snarls, waiting for him to turn it over. Sighing, he does so, allowing her to unclasp it and adjust it until it fits her. Shackles her, more appropriately, but it doesn't matter. Like a patronized child after a tantrum, he concludes, noting how serenely she tells him to continue to follow her through this labyrinth. Greg and Tamara should be here by now. Choosing to hope they are waiting in the library proper, he blinks a few times upon entering an even darker chasm, not unlike some of the ones in Neverland.

"Precarious," he notes. "Couldn't have just hidden the trigger in the back of your wardrobe?"

"It had to be both well-hidden and well-guarded," she laughs. Even the slightest whispers here echo. Again, not unlike Neverland. How many men had he lost in that one cave, the wretched one where Smee of all people had been the only one to return from, the one that demanded that which you'd never tell anyone else?

"I put it somewhere where no one would ever think I'd go," she continues as he inspects the chasm.

"When you say well-guarded, who's guarding it?"

"A friend. She's been through a lot." He doesn't like the disjointedness of her words, nor the foggy environment that conceals this guard. He follows the ledge, squinting in order to spot someone down at the bottom.

"There's a spell here that sustains her in whatever form she's in."

He feels her smile as strongly as he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"In fact, Hook, she's the reason this is a two-man job."

"What exactly am I here to do?" he snaps, facing her only halfway, eyes darting between her and his surroundings should this whatever-it-is leap out at him. Cavernous, dark, guarding someone's treasure. Dragon comes to mind.

"I'll get the trigger and you..."

Oh, bloody hell...

"You're the distraction."

"What?"

She's too quick and there is nothing behind him to catch him. Regina pushes him right down into the ground, his back hitting the rock before he thuds to the ground. Rocky, uneven ground, too. He stifles a howl and cleaves onto his torso in an attempt to stand. Damned ribs will probably never completely heal. Only his shoulder blades lift off the ground when he hears an eerie breeze, the piqued exhale of a dragon, he decides, until shiny pieces that resemble shards of glass catch his eye. They float together until they form a grayish musculature, traces of red and brown running along what look more and more like thighs. Hands. Breasts. Cowl. Finally on his feet, he recognizes the tattered remains of a gown.

It unleashes an ear-splitting wail, Maleficent, the sound bouncing off the rocks and echoing all throughout the chasm. All he can do is step around it as it stalks towards him.

"Maleficent, love you in earth tones," he tries, only to be answered with another banshee-like wail. This is an animal intelligence, perhaps the dragon part taken over fully. He breaks into a run, leaping up onto one of the taller rocks. What looks like a path lies in front of him, but there isn't much in the way of finding footing, and his fall couldn't have helped his limp all that much. Holding his breath, he turns. He'll have to fight, at least wound the bloody thing.

He dives down at her with his hook out, stabbing the neck and knocking it down. While not gigantic, it towers over him, wailing and roaring all over the place as it lunges at him. This time he drives his hook straight into her chest. She falls and unearths a cloud of dust...and is pieced back together, her parts bigger than before.

She smacks him hard enough to knock him further into the cave, howling in delight. It takes forever to stand, his hook arm wrapped around his waist as he feels his ribs will slice right through the skin. He hops, the pain of placing too much weight on his foot excruciating.

Not like this. He will not go out like this in spite of visions of Maleficent sucking out his life force or using those massive hands to tear him into tiny pieces. A ray of light beams down a few feet in front of him so he hobbles to it, careful to not step into it just yet as the creature seems to be struggling to find him.

The cave runs deep into the ground, but isn't as lengthy as it seems. Looking up, he finds the source of the light, the library. He won't make it, his mind says at the same time he steps up onto one of the smaller jagged rocks. The second even a portion of him dips out into the ray, he'll be seen.

"Hook?" someone hisses at him.

Tamara peers down at him, her hair falling down both sides of her. She holds out a device, phone-like, but with two silvery rods. It's too dark to see if she's pushed a button, but suddenly it makes an incessant buzzing sound along with a purple light emitting from the rods.

"Use this!"

He reaches upward and takes it at the same time Maleficent flies toward him, its mouth elongated. Just like with his hook before, he jams the device into its chest, the purple light seeming to attach itself to its body. It convulses so violently he's almost thrown, the wailing deafening. The odor of scorched flesh permeates the air around him. The creature falls to its knees and continues to thrash, bucking this way and that in its enormous form, either a dragon in heat or in the midst of its death throes. A bit of smoke curls its way up the chasm as Maleficent lies still.

He climbs without looking back, wishing as hard as he can that its singed ever-regenerating body will not be the last sight he will ever see. Tamara waits at the top on her knees with Greg holding her by the waist. Together, they pull him up and step away to let him breathe.

"What the bloody hell took you both so long?" he pants. His arm trembles from holding up the rest of him, his elbow locked.

"Had to pick up lunch," Tamara says with a shrug. "My taser?"

He kicks it over to her, good form at this particular moment be damned. It doesn't bloody count as saving a life when your deal is what endangers them in the first place. He coughs once and reaches out for Greg to stand. He hops once or twice and then sets his foot down, exhaling and shoulders relaxing at the realization he can still walk.

"You're welcome, by the way," Greg says, pushing him back toward the doors that brought him to this deathtrap.

"The same goes for you," he says. "I told you where you could find the queen. Now, if you please, the surface?"

"Tamara, get the elevator ready, will you, baby?" he hears Greg whisper. How Regina doesn't hear all this, he has no idea, but also doesn't care, letting out a curt laugh at a grown man calling a grown woman "baby." Terms of endearment boast a low standard here, he thinks, sure a simple "darling" or "love" would be more appreciated and accurate. But Tamara doesn't roll her eyes or scoff at it, waiting for them to enter the chamber and close the door.

The library looks like a haven now, he decides, some sunlight shining through the door window, streets and buildings on the other side. Only magic can be keeping Maleficent confined to the underground or else Storybrooke would have already been destroyed had Regina had one of her whims.

"Wait around, not straight on," he tells them, positioning himself a few feet from the elevator. He wants to see the look on her face.

A minute later, he does, as well as a gasp and a jump. Only the beginning, he promises her.

"Startling, aren't I? Some people say striking," he laughs, allowing a dark grin now. He rests his fingertips on the tip of his hook.

"You couldn't have survived that."

"Well, you should know by now one thing I excel at is surviving. The amazing thing is you almost had me, all that stuff about a fresh clean start, just killing them and moving on...it kind of touched me. For a moment there, I thought we had a real connection, and honestly, I almost put a stop to my plan." Oh yes, he pitied her, still does, a fresh start sounding so enviable, one with purpose and love in it...as easy as taking one of her beans and jumping into it with Henry in tow, no total annihilation of anyone's town even necessary.

"Your plan?"

"Well, their plan, but I fancied it," he says. "And they did save me from, well, whatever Maleficent is. Do you know these two?" Greg and Tamara emerge at the same time, performers just itching for their cue, he thinks, so he slides his thumb around his fingers for flourish. Greg's look of being on the brink of some holiday, Regina's of encroaching rage—finally, some justice. "Well they have a way with magic, or should I say a way against magic?"

They've circled her.

"Enough of this," Regina says, lifting her arm, the way her hand curves alerting him she would be able to summon a fireball with enough force to take out all three of them without that cuff. Ah, rage, superiority, and now bafflement. All in a day's work for her.

"Yeah, sorry, that's not going to work. Not anymore," Greg says. Regina lifts both her arms and tenses her fingers.

"The cuff!" she gasps, gazing at her left arm. "You gave me this."

"Well, you rather insisted."

"You knew I'd want it!" she growls.

"True. They rigged it with something that blocks your magic. It's impressive." He shoots a smile at them, beginning to wonder now where they come from, this man so ready to find his father and a woman clearly not a believer in sharing all her secrets with her fiance. His motive, Killian understands, but hers, well, love does come to mind, that she is assisting her partner with everything she has, but then why become engaged to Bae at all? Why the charade in the first place? She's mentioned a Home Office a few times, a name mysterious enough to explain how they've obtained all their impressive little tools, but this world is supposed to be ignorant of magic.

"So little bitty Owen does grown-up magic of his own now?" she spits, throwing off her gloves.

"It's not magic. Actually, this is something much better. Science." He almost, almost, loves how she regards the word with a primal hatred, more dedicated than ever to removing the cuff.

"Oh you can stop doing that now," Greg continues. "It's not going to work. You might be able to remove the leather, but inside are the toughest metals and machinery known to man and right now they're counteracting every magic bone in your body."

And..._you_ have access to it, he considers asking, taking pause to scrutinize this Greg, or Owen or whatever his name is. Not a heavy man, his physique still doesn't boast any obvious strength or skill, but more than that, his eyes don't have that hardened look Killian's seen enough times in his own reflection...and in others who have done everything they can to be unbroken, made new and impenetrable after too many years of being alone. The man carries that burden, oh yes, that unmistakable look of an orphan, but none of the walls, no cold exterior that comes from changing one's fate. Something is missing in this equation, he tells himself, but he can't even begin to guess what.

"Which one was she?" Tamara asks, whipping out a thin strip of paper from her pocket.

"She was the queen, the Evil Queen," Greg answers.

"Yes, I was the queen," Regina says, perhaps on the start of some attempt at persuasion.

"But now, here, you're nothing."

"And what are you?" she snaps back. A child to the last, he tells himself, not taking his eyes off the exchange, no one with better knowledge on how to deal with bullying than one who's had years of doing it herself.

"I'm just a man, a man on a mission."

"And all this, just to try to find your father. I already told you I don't know where he is."

Indeed something does not add up. There is some detail he is not privy to that gives this Greg a...a faith. Both of them, Tamara, too—a zealous faith in something, something more than the righteousness of their revenge on Regina. He shakes his head at himself, unable to rid himself of the feeling he'll deeply regret not knowing the answer sooner.

"Yes, you do! But that's not my mission."

"Then what is?" she asks, the question on the tip of Killian's lips.

"I'm not telling you," Greg laughs. "Bag her." Tamara throws the bag that kept him from knowing where he was earlier over Regina, immediately sending her staggering around.

"Care to fill one in on just why you're here once she's taken care of?" he tries.

"Not a good time, Hook."

* * *

**A/N: Coming up? Yeah, more Home Office crap, but we're so close to Neverland, guys!**


	17. Nothing But Dead Ends

He's watched Greg and Tamara unload all their gadgetry and what-not, reducing this cannery near the harbor into a vault of boxes and coils. Everything had quickly fallen second to their setting up of the equipment. Ignoring him, they sedated Regina with something and left her slumped in a corner, Tamara ending it all at nightfall with a kiss on Greg's cheek and a promise she'd be back first thing in the morning. It's not often he doesn't see a way to make himself useful, but Greg had absorbed himself in his work, fluttering around from one machine to another like a bee gathering pollen, so Killian spent most of the night standing guard near the windows overlooking the pier, Regina sleeping like the dead.

"Strap her down, will you?" he hears. He turns to find Greg gesturing at a cot with some thick leather straps attached to it, harnesses.

"A bit of assistance?" he asks, stooping down to gather up Regina. He could lift her on a better day, one without a limp, although he does fear it's too late for his ribs to ever be back to normal again. She's light, skin and bone save for a portion of lean muscle, but not light enough. Scooping up her legs with his shorter arm, he can lift her, but not without wobbling.

"Oh, come on, a dashing swashbuckler like you can't carry a woman off?" Greg calls back without looking at him, his entire being transfixed on some papers in a file.

"They're a little more awake and willing when I do."

Groaning, Greg comes out from behind the glass wall and takes Regina by the ankles. Together they center her on the cot, Greg dropping her legs the moment she's secured enough to not fall, causing the back heels of her shoes to thud against the cot so he can return to his work. Guess the bondage part is up to me, he thinks, sneering down at her. It all has nothing to do with the man's father, despite Greg's insistence that Regina knows where he is. All night long, Killian's seen no picture, no evidence of following other, more fruitless, leads.

Tamara returns an hour or so after the sun rises, dressed in a tight, stretchy sort of suit, also ignoring him and heading straight for Greg.

"Did you get into her office?" Greg asks her.

"Have I ever let you down?"

Killian switches to the other side of the cot, tightening the harnesses. There will be no way for them to avoid divulging any information while they are both here; some kind of planning will be necessary for the progression of their mission. He's worked on what it could be most of the night, dismissing each theory as quickly as it pops into his head for insufficient information.

"Look what I found," she says, lowering her voice, but not enough. He keeps his head down, however, raising an eyebrow at Greg's shocked expression.

"Are these what I think they are?"

Oh, the beans. Marvelous. As if sensing she's been burglarized, Regina's eyelashes flutter, twisting her torso and letting out a short moan.

"Magic beans. Neal told me all about them. They open portals." Neal? Neal...Bae. The lad had gone and reduced himself to an unwitting accomplice, he gathers, wondering if they assumed Greg's father had been sent to another land. That could work, he thinks, accounting for the false engagement. She could pry everything they needed to know out of him and find a way to cross worlds, also accounting for Regina's reluctance to say more about what she'd done with the father. It still didn't explain the equipment, he decides, shaking his head, or who their Home Office is.

"I bet he told you a lot, huh?" Greg asks her, causing Killian to roll his eyes. Really? A lover's quarrel now? He'd known Tamara but a few days and knew without a shadow of a doubt she held no conflicting feelings about Bae, so passionate in her yet-to-be-determined cause.

"Don't be jealous. As soon as we're done, this is coming off," she answers, pointing at quite the lovely ring on her finger. Bae spared no expense, he thinks, stifling an inkling of pride. Of course Bae would give the woman he loved the best, a boy who sacrificed himself for a family he loved able to do no less than that... He really should find him, not that his word would mean anything to him, not anymore, but Milah's son should know his betrothed cannot be trusted, yes?

"It will. You can have this one instead." He snaps his head up at that, seeing Greg drop a small bag into Tamara's hand.

"What the hell is that?" Well, not a ring, he gleans, concentrating back on the harnesses, Regina conscious enough to glare at him as he does so.

"I don't know. Regina had it on her."

"I'll send it back with the rest of the data." She bags it before he can catch a glimpse of the item in question, again going on about work and data and associates. "I think the Home Office is going to have a field day with everything we've collected so far."

"I still have one more thing I've got to do."

"Make it quick," she warns. "We'll be getting our instructions soon."

"This isn't going to take long."

Swallowing, he brushes Regina's chin with his hook, unsure when last she blinked. Still groggy from whatever they gave her, her face takes on a ghostly pallor, her lips dry.

"Whatever they're offering you, it's not worth it," she whispers, her eyes taking a long time to focus in on him.

"Well, considering they're offering to help me kill Rumpelstiltskin, I'd say it is." Look at me as a traitor all you want, lass, you're not the one who almost died at the hands of a banshee-zombie-witch-ghost-dragon.

"You actually trust them?" she clucks her tongue and rolls her eyes. He can feel the doubt on his own face. "You don't even know who they're working for."

Not yet, he considers, along with asking her if she knows more about this man she knows as Owen. It's too late, though, Greg wheeling in another one of his machines and bidding her a good morning. Might as well be whistling, he thinks.

"This part of your mission?" she snaps.

"No. No, this, this is personal. See, this is about my father." He attaches some papery square substance onto her skin and then adds circular looking things with more cords to her temples, all leading back to the machine he's wheeled out, one ridden with buttons and notches. Regina utters her denials again, but even to Killian they reek of lies, sounding more like a rehearsed story told so many times it becomes the answer without paying a thought to the question.

"Yet he never came back to find his only son?" Greg counters. There's your answer, mate, he thinks, watching a miniscule twitch in Regina's eye. Whether they believe she sent the man through a portal or not, he'll wager all his gold and even his ship that the most anyone will find of the father is a rotting corpse. Now, as to what is more important than locating a loved one—that is the question, this vague mission of theirs feeling more sinister by the minute.

"Hook, would you mind lending me a hand? Preferably your good one?" Man laughs at his own joke.

"Sorry, mate. I'm going to have to say no." It satisfies him, the blatant confusion written all over Greg's face, finally not so knowledgeable about something, are we? Spending so much time gathering your data and pleasing your Home Office you've forgotten to uphold your end of a bargain. "When you're interested in killing Rumpelstiltskin and not torturing the queen, find me." He leaves without anyone trying to stop him, not that that surprises him.

* * *

"Mr. K?" he calls into the Town Records building, finding no one behind the counter. Early, yes, but well within the hours posted on the outside of the door.

"Oh, you again. Sorry. Had dropped my doughnut." Mr. K. emerges, transferring a holed-in pastry from his hand to his mouth, the doughnut, he presumes, and fumbles around picking up a stack of fallen papers. "Guess if you were going to give me a dwarf name today it'd be Sloppy."

"What do you know of a Home Office?"

"Home Office? That's just a term for the headquarters of some place, home base...no, that's a baseball term. You won't know that. Uh...can you be more specific? Like Home Office of what?"

"If a stranger came to Storybrooke and had all manner of..." He can't even make a useful gesture with his hand, so his eyes scan around for equipment here that resembles Greg's. He spies a black box similar to one of the items they use, the one with the letters of the alphabet all jumbled around. "That."

"Computer? Buddy, everyone around here uses one of these from time to time. Sort of make the world go round...not literally. Sorry, you're just not giving me much to go on."

"I know," he says out loud. Blast Greg and his secrecy. He'd even returned the phone they'd let him use, so no clues to be uncovered from that. He finds he's been standing silent for at least a full minute, fully aware he is giving Mr. K. a piece of string and asking him to build a bridge out of it. No imagination when it comes to magic, either, but it didn't matter. Mr. K. did not appear to be a person with much ability in that field.

"Okay, here's what I recommend," Mr. K sighs, holding up his hands. "Look, you saw something that didn't look right to you and you're new around here and don't know what any of it means, right?"

Killian just nods; the truth could not have been summed up so pathetically.

"Just call the sheriff and report it. Easy as pie. Now if you'll excuse me." Humming to himself, he sits back down and takes a bite of his doughnut, opening a black and white paper and reading it. Leaning against the counter, Killian sighs, loud enough for the man to know he's still there. So perhaps it has finally come to that, he thinks, rolling his tongue around in his mouth.

"Could I use your phone, mate?"

Without speaking, Mr. K. picks up the phone, so much bigger than ones he's seen before, and not as portable, and sets it on the counter before returning to his post. He needs to dial the numbers in on this one, turning each one as far as it will go until the dial spins back on itself to its initial position. Holding the receiver to his ear with his shoulder, he waits, listening to each ring with rapt attention since he has no idea just what he'll say.

"Hello, you've reached Sheriff Swan. I'm unable to talk just now, but if you leave your name, number, and a brief message, I will return your call as soon as possible. Thank you."

What the bloody hell? An endless, dead sort of tone is all he hears after the words, all lumped together like she'd spoken them in one breath. Perhaps a delay of some kind? He needs to take some kind of action.

"Emma?" he whispers into the phone.

"No answer?" Mr. K asks, looking up from his giant paper.

"Something of an answer and then it all just stopped."

"Voicemail. Means they're not there. Try later."

* * *

He should try Bae, he thinks, pacing around on his deck. At least let him know Tamara is up to something. With no proof, he argues with himself. One doesn't go accusing fiancees of various misdeeds without proof. He could go on faith, faith in the boy's, the _man's _sense of responsibility, sense of justice. Yes, yes, that's just how to go about all this. Hello, Bae, it's been a while and I know there must still be some bad blood between us but the woman you're going to marry is in league with a gentleman keen on torture and they've kidnapped the queen and are gathering information to go to some mysterious Home Office for random nefarious purposes. Irrefutable. He rolls his eyes at himself.

"Hook?"

He turns to find Tamara on the gangplank, back in her typical scarf and coat combination. Huffing, her cheeks are puffed out, her skin aglow with excitement.

"You said when we were ready to kill Rumpelstiltskin to come find you."

"Yes?"

"Everything's changed!" she breathes, her weight shifting from the balls of her feet to her heels as if she is trying not to jump up and down.

"Unless that means you're ready now, not interested," he says, his eyebrow in mid-air.

"Why don't you come take a trip down to the mines with us and see for yourself how ready we are?"

* * *

**A/N: Thank you to all the reviewers and to those who have added this story to their list of favorites! It means a lot, even though, again, I do not own the show. It is an Adam&Eddie miracle. Coming up? Punching Greg in the face is one of the most satisfying things ever.**


	18. Building Motivation

The mines boast only a little more light than the caverns under the library, obscured enough that Tamara uses a light stick to navigate the passageways, following the tracks down a seemingly endless winding path. He entertains the idea of the precious Home Office ordering Greg to strike him down with his car, some harbinger of their agenda.

"It's just ahead," Greg says, holding his phone out in front of him like he's reading a map. Very well could be, although Killian's patience again hangs by a thread when it comes to these two, their end of the deal clearly an afterthought.

"Are you sure whoever's in charge of you guys doesn't want you to die in a mine collapse?"

"Just keep moving," Tamara prods, sounding a little impatient herself. Well then, he'll just skip the foreplay.

"Just who is telling you what to do?"

"You know what? That's not your concern," Greg snaps, his entire persona darker than last Killian saw him. Either torturing Regina led to nothing...or it led exactly to what he thought it would lead to, a full admission his father is nothing but dust by now. And it most certainly is his concern, he wants to snap back, although his reasons why it is fail to form coherent sentences for him. "It's not ours, either."

"Not your concern? So you're telling me you don't know who commands you?" Of all the idiotic, ill-conceived systems...a ship with a captain the crew never sees would never work, couldn't work. Someone always knows because someone has to relay the orders, and if they don't speak of the captain, that means they're either afraid to, or that those carrying out the orders are mere pawns. Or both.

"Unlike you, Hook," Tamara sighs, shaking her head at him. "We believe in something. We have faith in the sacredness of our cause."

And your cause probably differs substantially from your captain's cause, he is about to say when Greg calls out "we're here" to them. Devoted pawns and completely aware of it—he'd never seen anything like it. Yes, he has, he remembers, recalling a slavish commitment a group of young boys showered upon their leader, but that's another world, another time. He looks over to see Greg picking up one of the axes hanging up on the rack, dwarf names etched into them with magic.

"So your sacred cause if pilfering a dwarf's pickax," he laughs. One day, one day they'll both be utterly floored at how blindly they'd followed, like sheep at the end of a little stampede wondering how they ended up surrounded by a wolf pack.

"Regina had this in her pocket when you turned her over to us," she says, holding up what looks like a black diamond, glints of purple shimmering on it.

"It's a trigger," Greg explains. "And this ax, according to our people, is what activates it."

"You're going to destroy an entire town and kill everyone in it?" His stomach churns, the memories flooding through him, a voyage to another world for something meant only to kill masses faster than swords and arrows, Liam once believing as they do, blindly. His back hunches a fraction, a lightheaded feeling sweeping over him at the thought of all of it happening again. Are you really that thick, he asks himself. You didn't even keep your own revenge between yourself and your enemy and yet you believed they would? No, he hadn't, but this was that essential missing piece, their sacred cause of ridding their world of magic.

"Yeah, including your enemy," Greg says, setting a stone down on the track.

"Rumpelstiltskin won't be immune to this?"

"None of your kind will be," Tamara answers. None of your kind...just a pestilence some far-off ruler decided didn't deserve to live. "Once this thing gets activated, nothing can shut it off."

"This whole town will revert to the forest it was," Greg continues. All the people just going about their lives, most of whom probably despised Regina as much as they do, wiped away, as if they were never here, scores of children and laborers who kept to themselves...

"So tell us, Hook, we're willing to die for our cause. Are you willing to die for yours?"

They won't offer him a choice if he backs out now, and reasoning with devotees tends to not go so well... A swift chop of the ax will end it all right here should he make an attempt for the diamond.

"Absolutely," he says with some bite, incredulous at how they can smile at each other. He strokes his chin in hopes of some plan. If Rumpelstiltskin won't be immune, there may not be any kind of magic to fight it with, and it's more than possible Regina is already dead. Her plan coming true after all, except now she won't be taking Henry anywhere with her. They'll join everyone she planned on...gods, Emma.

Greg strikes the diamond. Instantly it gives off a blue glow, hovering above the space where they'd set it, their faces full of fear and repulsion at its magic. With a blast, it shoots blue jagged lines into the air, a sucking sound growing more and more prominent.

"We'll be seeing you," Greg says, dashing back down the path. He follows, for now. He has no idea what idea he'll throw out when he finds Swan, or if she'll even believe him. Oh, she'll believe him on this one. It's when her life's not in danger that she always suspects you, he reminds himself. Reaching the streets faster than he'd anticipated, Greg and Tamara race in the direction of the harbor. That's a start, he tells himself, breaking into a run the other way. Her apartment will come up before her sheriff's office, so he will have to start there, and if she's not at those places...

Well, doubt be damned. He will find her. He will always find her.

He bursts through the front door and runs up the steps two at a time, the third floor seeming eternally out of reach. A sudden rumble knocks him into the wall before the second flight of stairs. Only the beginning, he thinks, springing back onto his feet. At last, he almost stumbles upon it, the door wide open.

"Well figure it out! It's your fault!" he can hear her bellow, and he almost laughs at the sound. So at least they will both be of one mind when it comes to survival, he tells himself.

"Stop! I already lost my dad. I don't want to lose anyone else. We have to work together," he hears a boy shout. Henry. Well, now's as good a time to enter as any, what with lives on the line.

"From the mouths of babes," he announces, hoping the boy will take his side. "I'd say the lad has a point."

The punch comes without warning, a quick, lightning-driven blow right in the face, courtesy of the prince. He knows it's not as hard as it could have been, a warmup for more to come, possibly.

"For the last time we met."

"Bloody hell," he winces, eyes watering, but no blood, he realizes, bringing his hand up to his nose for a second. Ah, and the prince is also armed with one of those weapons. Gun. Glad to know the group has its priorities in order.

"Tell us why you're here before I use something other than my fist," the prince demands, eyes flashing. He licks his lips to avoid daring him to try. Not the time.

"I think threatening to kill me is a bit redundant when we're all about to die anyway," he says right into the man's eyes, stubborn and outraged. Common family trait.

"No thanks to you. Regina just told us you were working with Tamara and Greg to get your revenge," Swan snaps at him, stepping right up in front of her son, very much a "you'll have to go through me" motion, make no mistake.

"That was before they told me I had to die to get it," he explains, but she brushes him off, turning back to her father.

"We don't have time for this. We have a real problem."

"Which is why I'm here," he says, looking straight at her. They can agree on not wanting to die, can't they? Admit that to each other if nothing else, as if anything else at all mattered right this moment? "Because staring death in the face has made me realize if there's one thing I want more than my revenge it's my life, so shall we stop this thing now and then resume bickering?"

"There is no stopping it," Regina says, taking a step closer towards him. Truce then? On all sides? "Now, the best I can do is slow it down, but that will only delay the inevitable."

"Or give us the time we need," the prince says, looking up, then over at Snow, who looks about ready to sink onto the floor in despair.

"Time for what?" she whispers.

"Steal back the beans! Use them to get everyone back into the Enchanted Forest before Storybrooke is gone." Solid enough plan for him, Killian decides, taking a quick look over at the door. They'll have to hurry if they're going to make a run for the harbor, at least two beans awaiting them there, and, he realizes with a slight upward curve of his mouth, it's the first time in years the Enchanted Forest sounds like home, a real home.

"How? We don't even know where Greg and Tamara are," Swan argues.

"Well, I do. I can help," he offers. It begins to sound easy, snagging back the beans while the others bring everyone to a rallying point. If he has enough time to run back to the harbor...

"Help yourself. You'll take them and leave us all behind. Why should we trust you?" It's the way she says it, not the words themselves...honestly, all he has to do is take hold of her, and anyone she wants, when he jumps in...but there isn't even a hint of anger in her tone. It's just expectation, that she _knows _he'll do that and is resigned to it. He can't answer the defeated look on her face, time too short to use words to reassure her, by now nothing in their past to use to convince her otherwise.

"No, we won't have to. I'll go with him. If he tries anything, I'll shoot him in the face." Ever the eager volunteer, the prince.

"Quite hostile, aren't we?"

"Just being clear." Family traits all around...

* * *

He manages to keep up with the prince down the stairs and out to a monstrous orange/brown vessel with a long back area, presumably for hauling, so much taller than the others he's seen. This one's base comes all the way up to his chest. He watches the prince climb in first, leaping up into a seat and fastening a strap across his chest.

"Come on! I thought time was of the essence here!" he barks at him. Not to be outdone, Killian climbs in and pulls on the strap meant to go across the passenger. It stretches and clicks into place in a small appendage buried in the cushioning.

The prince places a key into another hole next to a wheel of some kind, like a helm but with no spokes. A deep purring sound erupts, lights appearing on the board in front of them, the vessel rumbling. He holds onto the handle that will open the door should the thing capsize. Fortunately, it all appears to be normal according to the prince's face, focused on the street ahead of them through the glass.

"Where are they?"

"The cannery at the harbor, where I'm guessing you found Regina."

An invisible force jerks Killian into the back cushion of his seat when the vessel moves at a frantic pace. A bit claustrophobic, very claustrophobic, he admits, his knuckles on the door handle whitening. He keeps his eyes on the wheel to distract himself, and it's rather fortunate the prince knows how to handle it as more and more people run screaming into the streets. Leaning forward, he finds pedals on the floor of the vessel, the right one apparently speeding things up when pressed. Maybe operating one of these isn't all that challenging.

"Why are you changing your mind?" the prince asks, turning onto another street and swerving around a horde of people running out of the buildings. Vines and branches wrap around and cling to the exteriors. Reverting back to the forest it once was...

"What?"

"You were helping Greg and Tamara and now you're not. Why?"

"I explained my reasons. Or were you just too busy imagining hitting me again to notice?"

He strongly, strongly dislikes the split-second way the vessel stops, launching him forward with only the strap to catch him. The vessel that brought him here lays open in front of the cannery, filled with Greg and Tamara's supplies right behind a small bonfire of sorts.

"They're in there," he says.

"Let's go," the prince answers back, at least not too committed to his line of questioning. Just as he frees himself from the constraining vessel, another rumble of destruction nearly throws both of them down to the ground. More will come, and with shorter amounts of time in-between.

"Time's running out," he manages to announce right before breaking into a run, tuning out the prince's sarcastic "oh is that what that means" as he goes.

The cannery is a man-made cave, drips of water in the distance the only sound unless one speaks above a whisper to incite an echo. The sparse amount of light reflects off the shiny surfaces the way an underground river might illuminate a cave ceiling. The prince keeps his gun drawn while they hold their breaths, unwilling to miss the slightest sound of movement. It helps also in avoiding the musty odor of sardines and other fish. They must be here somewhere. Greg had just rushed back inside when they'd pulled up.

"So tell me, Hook," the prince says, hanging back to now walk behind him, eyes continuously checking to see if Greg and Tamara have crept up on them. Killian won't complain as it allows him to scan what lies ahead without worry. This prince, David, for all his hot-headed stubbornness, possesses too much honor to leave another defenseless. "All this time it's been about revenge for you, why is it suddenly so important that you survive?" Ah, back to an interrogation in the midst of life-or-death situations. He shoots him an exasperated expression and continues his search.

"I know what I'm fighting for—my family. What are you fighting for?"

If there's a point to this, he'd like to know it.

"Myself. It's plenty of motivation, I can assure you." He quickens his pace, less than enthused about expanding upon the discussion, when he hears a clank. David lurches forward to catch up to him, his footsteps beginning to thud.

"Quiet," he murmurs to him, thrusting out an arm. He knows so little about guns, but one gets the feeling turning corners may be a deadlier action than meets-the-eye. Heading into an alcove, he spies ropes and wooden shelving...nothing that should be clanking independent of a person manipulating everything. He lets David go first this time, gun ready. In his mind's eye, he finds the notion of simply shooting the two of them dead and nabbing the beans from their fresh corpses unlikely. The two of them have proved they're more problematic than they're worth and may even have a gun or two of their own. He follows David's lead and hides behind one of the massive barrels, his eyes just barely able to make out the figure of Greg emerging from the shadows like a nightmare with both his hands full.

"The beans, give them to me." David does not bother to shout as he hustles out from behind the barrels, the calm of one who is no stranger to battle apparent. Sadly, Greg does not slip into a panic, either, so Killian edges towards him, preparing to pull him down to the ground should he try to run...and by the look of the way he's shuffling his feet, he's thinking of doing just that. He sets his supplies down first and fumbles around in his pocket.

"You mean these?" he asks, holding up a small jar.

A shot fires, resounds, just missing David and hitting a wooden panel of the wall. A flash of black hair whipping by is all he sees of Tamara before he tackles Greg, landing on him and shuffling this way and that in search of the jar, probably broken by now. David's fled in pursuit of Tamara—perhaps a fresh corpse is more probably than he'd first thought.

Greg has a strength that, honestly, takes him by surprise. He's able to roll over on top of him, almost pinning him. He bucks until he's on his side...weak ribs side, he grunts...and throws a leg over Greg until he's straddled him. Throwing a punch hasn't felt this good for a long time. Greg's agonized groan echoes, but the muffled rumbling of Tamara and David implies she won't be coming to his aid just yet.

Greg hits him in the throat, sending him downward and gasping with only his arms to catch himself. He has to shake his head a few times to keep his vision from blurring. There is not even time to cough. A bean lays just a couple of feet in front of him. His hook can almost rake it in...no, instead it needs to block Greg's arm. He brings it down only to dig into the floorboards instead of the man's hand. They stop struggling at the same time to make an attempt at the beans, Greg leaping to his feet and bending over to pinch the one closest to the door. At the same time, Killian scoots forward and snatches the other one.

He heaves himself up and chases after Greg just as he grabs Tamara by the shoulders and urges her to leave with indistinguishable babble, David knocked to the floor.

It's instinct to help him up, ignoring the grunts and resisting. He can't go after them now. The one will have to do.

"What are you doing? They've got the beans!

"Not all of them! I snagged one!" he snaps back, releasing him. He holds it up for proof and stuffs it into a satchel, suddenly terrified of dropping it.

"Where are the rest?"

"Who cares? All we need is one." Maybe if they had more time, a second one could be handy, a trial run or something, the town leaving in two shifts, but even from within the cannery he can spot the signs of destruction. Silhouettes of branches appear in the high windows. The smell of fish lessens thanks to an ever-growing scent of pine. David starts for them.

"Hey!" He catches his arm, the amount of empathy required to give a damn about Greg and Tamara stranded in an untamed forest sorely lacking. "Live to fight another day, mate."

Jerking his arm back, David heaves, staring him right in the face, a simmering rage building behind his eyes. It feels personal, beyond just hitting him at the sheriff's station. Somehow he's offended the prince with his very presence.

"I am not your mate," he snarls at him, groping around until he yanks the satchel and runs back out the way they entered. With an exhale, he has no choice but to follow, wondering if the vessel will already be gone by the time he makes it out there. But he refuses to ask the prince to slow down, tree roots splintering the wooden floor.

"Where are the others?" he asks, climbing back into the vessel and closing the door. He adjusts the strap without difficulty now, and given the conditions of the town, he might come to rely upon it.

"Granny's. Good, you're strapped in. I'm flooring it."

"What does-" The momentum jerks him back into the seat as it did before, David commanding the vessel at a dizzying speed. Flooring it, apparently. The satchel with the bean lays on the other side of David, between him and his door, so reaching over for it is an impossibility.

"Don't think I'll be taking my eyes off you when we're back in the Enchanted Forest," David warns him, nearly prompting him to demand just what it is he's done to put the man off so. David doesn't strike him as a person who imagines vivid tales in his head just for the drama of them, so it is some perceived problem.

"Just what is it you think I'll be doing when we're back that requires such scrutiny?" They reel to the side when he turns onto another street. "There won't be much to plunder, what with everyone's valuables getting destroyed now, will there?" he adds, just to see how much redder the prince can get.

"That's not what you're after."

Killian opens his mouth, but snaps it shut when another turn almost sends the vessel over on its side to avoid a few vines springing up out of nowhere. They finally slow down upon a white building with some outdoor seating that he's passed a few times before when he needed to get his bearings on Storybrooke. Granny's. He waits this time for David to get out of the car first, his cryptic accusation swimming around in his head, so he will hang back...lest he be tempted to pick these people's pockets, he snorts to himself.

"We have the bean!" David announces, vague cheers answering. He will hang back, sensing a camaraderie among this group, curiously devoid of Rumpelstiltskin or Regina. Or Bae.

"You did it?" Swan erases his questions, scurrying over to her father with what appears to be every intention of embracing him, only to stop suddenly. She sways a little before she notices the spot where Tamara's bullet grazed by him. "You okay?" Touching his arm, she then takes a step backward, busying herself by brushing a strand of hair out of her face. He memorizes this, Emma Swan loving, so uncomfortable with the prospect of it, too.

"Yeah, grazed. It's fine," David tells her, his smile conveying surprise, pleasant surprise. They must not touch often.

"Let's get going. Henry?" The boy steps up and she hurries to him, at ease now with all the nuances of affection. Even as he inquires about his other mother's whereabouts, she's straightening the lapels of his coat, smoothing out his scarf. If she really missed...he looks about ten or eleven...years of his life, she might be making up for lost time. She bends over so she can face him.

"Regina can hold off the self-destruct just long enough for us to escape but..." she unleashes in one breath, her hands sliding up to hold the boy by his shoulders. He raises an eyebrow. He cringes at the choked, breathless sound she makes when concern floods Henry's face.

"But what?" he asks. Snow's sudden deflation pulls him from the two of them for just a moment. Ah. So the queen does indeed love the child.

"She won't survive," Swan murmurs.

"No...no!"

He paces around, needing to see her face, needing to see how much it pains her to break such news to him. Her head shakes, eyes downcast...a lesser person would find some solace in the child now fully belonging to her. Not Swan. Not Emma. She looks about as lost as Henry, new to the painful, bitter aspects of parenting still.

"Henry, I'm sorry. I promised her I'd get you to safety."

"No, we can't do this! She's family! We don't leave family behind."

"This is what she wants. We have a way out. We have to take it." Her voice edges on frantic, and it's tempting him to wrestle David down for the bean now, throw it, and haul her and her boy in even with kicking and screaming all the way.

"We saved her from being killed by the wraith. How is this any different?"

"The wraith," Snow breathes, eyes popping.

"What?" This freezes Swan, her body rigid like her mother is about to leave her.

"We sent it through a portal. Why can't we do the same thing with the self-destruct?" she asks. There's no need for dozens of answers, ambiguous wraith incident notwithstanding—time is running out.

"Because we don't know if it's going to work?" Swan counters. That, too.

"It could!"

"Yeah!" David hustles over to his wife, nodding his head. They're cornering her, something in him thinks with a building urge to stand between them and her, but he quells it, staying back. Henry's misgivings, he understands; he'd have to have no soul at all to avoid forming feelings for Regina after so many years, but what sort of prince and princess were these two that appeared so eager to save the woman who cursed them? Regina had kept them from their daughter, hadn't she? Had, by all accounts, come close to securing the dagger for Cora which would have resulted in all their deaths? It feels...it feels like they are choosing their greatest foe over their daughter, someone no one's chosen. One look straight in her eyes is all it takes for one to see that. The building anger bubbling in him burns his ears.

"It's too risky. No one'll go along with it." That's it, love. Talk some sense into them. It is one thing in her favor. Self-preservation isn't a thing to be underestimated.

"Yes, we will, because it's the right thing to do." Bloody cricket. Horror sweeps over her face. "Look, Snow White and the Prince have always led us before and we've always won."

Madness. Sheer madness. Did they win when the woman's curse swept them all here with no memories of their previous lives? Are they winning now, certain death possibly a breath away?

"So who's willing to let them lead us again?" the cricket continues, raising his hand for effect. The dwarfs concur, everyone rallying together. Maybe he's not the only one who feels alone in a crowded room, he thinks.

"This is what we should do," Snow attempts to reassure Swan, holding Henry for effect.

"And will do," David adds. He rolls his eyes at the same time Swan dips her head in frustration. Gods, not one bit of survival instinct in any of them.

"I know we haven't had a lot of chances to be parents, but give us this one," she begs her. Henry switches from his grandmother to his mother, arms around her waist. She'll give in. It is a fact, as sure as the sun out in the day and the moon out at night. She'll give into this plea for family, for others to help her reach her decisions instead of acting alone...and she'll die for it. His insides scream for him to pull her aside and sift his fingertips into her hair and let her know he agrees with her, let her know at least he is choosing her and her plan, the one that will actually keep them all alive. "Let us do the right thing. It's not too late."

Her hand is flying up into Henry's hair, cradling him. Damn it.

"I just don't want him to be alone," she whispers. And his heart breaks. "I don't want him to grow up the way I did."

She silences them, for a second, and for a second, he wonders if that's all it will need to add a pinch of doubt into this idiocy. Tears well in her parents' eyes. They do love her, he reminds himself, as she loves them, but, but...they don't _know _her.

Another rumble rattles the tables and chairs, the bell against the door jangling so hard it threatens to break the glass.

"This plan could fail," Swan says, a renewed energy bursting out of her. "We use that bean now, and we can get away for sure! We can survive!"

"But it's wrong! Emma, I killed her mother!" That's where all this is coming from, guilt? He sets his jaw, not sure why he's hesitating to lunge at David with his hook at his throat and steal the bean back. Choosing guilt over their daughter, their grandson.

"You did that to Cora because you had to," Swan argues.

"I did it because it was easy. It was a mistake. There were other paths, harder paths, and I wish I had taken them." Snow approaches her now, face full of love and pleading and guilt and he can't watch. He can't watch her give into it. "So, please, Emma, honey, let's take the hard path, because if we don't, we will be building a future on Regina's blood."

She glances at her son. Then at her mother and then her father. She needs them, and he feels like an idiot for thinking it as it is obvious that all children need their parents, but she's too orphaned to turn this down now, this chance to be parented and taken under a wing and given guidance.

"Okay," she nearly mouths, her parents sighing in relief. Madness. Opportunity presents itself, however, as David tosses her the satchel. In just one swift motion he's able to catch it before she does.

"You're all mad," he says, turning his back to them to empty the bean into his pocket. He feels them inches from his back, can see Emma from the corner of his eye wedge herself between him and her father. She starts to speak, but she's had her chance, the guilt and the nagging consciences just afraid to really succeed. "I can live with myself," he says, louder than he needed to as she's closer than he'd even expected her to be.

"Give it back," she demands.

"She wants to die for us, I say let her." Once they survive this, and they _will _survive it, Regina's death will be nothing but a distant memory.

"You and I, we understand each other," she says without even blinking. "Look out for yourself and you'll never get hurt, right?"

"Worked quite well for me."

"Yeah, till the day that it doesn't." Something in her flinches for a brief flash, but she collects herself. That's right, Swan. Tell yourself honestly this is what you think should be done. "We're doing this. It may be stupid, it may be crazy, but we're doing it." He doesn't feel everyone's eyes on him, just hers, and yet their presence hasn't simply vanished. There's pain in her tone, that desperateness that comes out of her when Henry's involved. "So you can join us, and be a part of something, or you can do what you do best and be alone."

She holds out her hand, sure he'll give it to her. He cocks his head, pausing just a moment to examine her. She's not telling him everything, every bit of why she's chosen to go along with this insanity all of a sudden, just that it has everything to do with the boy.

"Quite passionate, Swan." He lowers the satchel into her hand as the crowd dissipates, David lingering just a second longer before seeing to something else. The only ones who feel alone in a crowded room now alone together, he will find out what's happened. He can make one last bid for escape if she listens. She might...her eyes haven't left him.

"Why are you really doing this?" he whispers. It mustn't sound judgmental, or angry, and he's not. Not at her. The way she tries to keep it together, her face close to crumpling, makes him lean in more.

"The kid just lost his father today. I'm not going to let him lose a mother, too."

So...in mourning. He recoils a fraction, blood running cold. He knows without her saying it, this non-entity of a father suddenly back in her life and the boy's and then out of it just as quickly...he _knows _instantly the identity, asking in hopes she'll correct him. But she won't. Her loss is palpable to him now.

"His father. Who's Henry's father?"

"Neal."

He feels the color leave his face as surely as if he saw it all fade away in a mirror.

"Baelfire?"

"Yeah," she whispers, her eyebrows arched and telling, convinced he will now understand and cooperate. She follows the others out, leaving him in the room alone, images of a boy at his helm flashing through his mind, as utterly gone from his family as he was once before.

* * *

**A/N: Coming up? We're on a boat!**


	19. Return to Neverland

It's all been a haze—walking down to the harbor, releasing the lines of the ship, holding the bean in his hand, a throw all it will take to go...it doesn't matter where, and that sickens him more than the carved-in letters near the helm, an angry line slashed through each one of them. He hadn't seen much of Bae once he had sold, yes, sold him to the Lost Boys, word here and there reaching him about a boy evading Pan by wandering through the caves and picking up thieving, stealthy tactics as he went along. Even then Killian had felt a rush of pride, tempted to go seek him out.

But it appears Bae had never needed him. Everyone who has ever left Neverland makes a deal with Pan to do so, himself included, shuddering at the dark memories, except Bae. Just released and freed to make a new life for himself, one that started in this world at this time with these people, another one of fate's cruel jokes.

* * *

_He wakes to an ear-splitting banging, one that rivals the pounding pain in his own head. He opens heavy eyelids to find Liam using a wooden spoon to beat a pot over and over again, disorienting him until his tosses and turns transform the sheets into a cocoon._

_ "Bloody hell, Liam, stop it!" His hands fly up into his temples and proceed to rub little circles into them._

_ "Really, Killian? Hung over? What kind of example are you setting?" Dropping the spoon and pot with deafening thunks, Liam reaches over and hoists him to his feet, dusting off his clothes. _

_ "I told you I don't do balls..." Especially ones he has to struggle to even remember._

_ "Have you no respect for the uniform?"_

_ "I'm sorry, brother." He staggers over to the mirror. Sure enough, his uniform is wrinkled, sweaty, stained in a few places. His boots are definitely a sight, smudged and scuffed. It had started out so innocently, a small cup of rum punch to ease his nerves at such a party, one thrown by the richest lords and ladies in the kingdom. Then he'd needed to drink more so his hands would have something to do as he had no intention of dancing with any of the young women off to the side making it all too obvious they were eligible. Then...well, it would take some kind of magic to help him recall the rest._

_ "It's fortunate you didn't pass out and fall in the water!" Liam shouts, realizing the effect his booming voice has and immediately lowering it. "You could have picked a fight and gotten hurt, or taken a fall down a flight of stairs..."_

_ "Thank you, Mum..."_

_ "I'm serious, Killian! I was looking all over for you!" Liam wraps his arms around him, unserviceable uniform and all, and holds him for a solid minute, the warm pressure of his shoulder doing wonders for Killian's headache. "Listen to me, drinking just leads to getting drunk. Please, brother, please don't resort to that again. If you feel overwhelmed, just come find me. I'll always make time for you."_

_ "Even if I'm making an ass of myself?" he snorts, reaching up to rub his eyes. "You ought to be ashamed of me."_

_ "Never., and I'll especially make time for you if you're making an ass of _yourself."

* * *

How ashamed Liam would be of him now, he thinks, steering the ship out of the harbor towards open sea. Selling out Milah's only child, her only legacy, to his enemies just out of spite only to find out the boy went and died anyway, probably at the hands of that pernicious fiancee of his, breaking Emma's heart once again.

All well and good to pass judgment as you're taking away her only chance to live.

He glances down at the bean again, still in his hand and not stirring the waters into a vortex. Gods, he didn't want to die, not after his brush with Maleficent and now this, and if it was so bloody all right to like Emma Swan, then it should be all right to go back and help her. He'd vowed to change for Bae. Now he'll vow the same thing to himself. Men kill for chances to live this long, expecting tome-loads of wisdom after doing so, and he's squandered it. No more. A long and arduous journey, regaining honor, but he can think of no better purpose for one's life.

It's not too late, Storybrooke's buildings not yet overtaken by the wild. He leans into the wheel to form a wide-enough turn to keep from capsizing the ship. If he thinks too much on how impractical the decision still feels to him he'll change his mind, so he formulates strategy as he goes, wondering how a wraith came into the picture in the first place.

When he reaches the harbor, the same empty space that held the Jolly Roger waits, Swan and her family and the others waiting. He casts a rope to tie off the ship, reluctant to wait until the latest crisis is over before securing it more properly. Satisfied at least he won't return to find it out on its own riding the waves, he starts for the gangplank. Rumpelstiltskin has joined them, and he will not acknowledge him. He nods to himself. He can do that, not acknowledge him. After all, this place is the home of the Dark One as well and so perhaps a truce can be forged...maybe...more pressing matters at hand.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Swan charges, a sight compared to when they'd parted ways at Granny's—flushed and ruddy like she'd been running, tears of fury still clinging to her eyelashes...what the bloody hell had happened?

"Helping," he decides to answer after a beat. Pride is nothing compared to survival, he reminds himself, knowing it won't humiliate him half as much as he fears it will to place the bean in her hands and let her do with it as she wills.

"Well you're too late," she snaps.

"Am I?" Town looks intact to him.

"I thought you didn't care about anyone but yourself."

"Maybe I just needed reminding that I could." He extends his bag out to her, offering it up before she commands it. Her eyes widen as far as he's ever seen them go, little gold flecks among the green as she opens the bag and holds the bean in her gloved hand. It's almost a fearful look, that terror she had on the beanstalk at him not sinking to her low expectations, too many people having robbed her of one thing or another. At least he won't be part of that anymore.

"Enough waiting around. Let's go," Regina orders.

"Go? Where? I thought we were saving the town."

"We already did," David says as if that fills him in on every missing piece. Well no wonder Storybrooke looks safe upon re-arrival. His gaze returns back to Swan.

"We need to get Henry. Greg and Tamara took him through a portal."

"Well I offer my ship and my services to help follow them." It's the first thing she's really asked of him, and he won't refuse. A town full of people and the two of them choose that boy to take? Kill everyone and make off with Henry after no one is left to oppose them to where? They'd been of this world...

"That's great, Hook, but how will we track them?" Regina asks, and then it hits him—they will all be on the ship.

"Leave that to me. I can get us where we need to go." Rumpelstiltskin, Belle on his arm, steps up. They will _all _be on the ship and his head spins. He's given his word, however, and reneging just because of the distaste of that demon...that man, he sighs...on his ship makes for a less than honorable attempt at doing better.

And Emma's asked him to do it.

"Then let's do it," Snow says, her bow and a pack strapped to her ready. Sharing the sentiment, he climbs back onto the Jolly Roger without a second look at Rumpelstiltskin, who's paused to speak with Belle...probably asking her to stay behind. You're really doing this, he asks himself, watching Regina and Snow tentatively reach for the ropes like they're about to touch the coils of a python as Swan positions herself near the bow so she's off to herself and takes a deep inhale with closed eyes to fight an oncoming surge of panic. He's frozen in mid-step, watching her, watching her walls build themselves back up and transform her from some lost orphan into someone used to fighting for every scrap of fortune that comes her way, and there is something inexplicably beautiful about that duality in her. His lips dry at just the thought of it. One thing in her favor, he decides, loosening the last of the lines himself, Henry has one of the most formidable families he's ever known.

"So, are you done trying to kill me?" Rumpelstiltskin taunts as he climbs up onto the deck. Henry's grandfathers alone will try the patience of any kidnappers.

"I believe so."

"Excellent. Then you can live." He sneers at him, blood and memories teasing the prospect of drawing his sword now and running it right through him even though it will do no good. He instead plants his feet into the deck. Never, never in all this time would he have believed anyone who told him the crocodile would be slithering his way up on deck and not mercilessly beaten to death as a result. With a wave of his hand, Rumpelstiltskin summons the orb from the shop, the device he used to locate Bae. Even as he rolls his tongue around in his mouth, this could be fortuitous, the Dark One on his, well, on Swan's side for now. Nothing can withstand the wrath of a Dark One and he feels Greg and Tamara won't be exceptions. With nothing more than a drop of blood, he activates the orb.

Swirls of scarlet churn throughout the orb, the makings of a globe. The coastlines, the vast sea world with hundreds of tiny islands offsetting the main one—it shouldn't be possible.

"Where is that? Where did they take Henry?" The shapes mean nothing to Regina, but they will, and, most ironically of all, it is the crocodile's face that mirrors his own—dread. It shouldn't be possible, but it is.

"Neverland," he breathes. He refuses to stand still. Why they've absconded with Henry there can't be for anything good. Scores of boys grappling with budding adulthood find themselves in Neverland and always find themselves crying into the night afterwards. Pan. It makes so much sense now, he thinks, leaping up to the helm, this Home Office, the way Greg and Tamara seemed to be privy to everything and nothing all at once. It was like finding shreds of a chart or pieces of a puzzle all turned over on their backs—the details now in sight and still not fitting together into something tangible.

* * *

"Manipulated by forces far greater than they can conceive..." is all he hears on top of the whooshing wind, the flapping of the sails, and the incessant humming of the portal. Pale colors swirl all around, the ship picking up more and more speed. It's impossible to tell where one world ends and another begins, not until he grips the helm, knuckles as white as they will go, and adjusts to a sudden stillness. A full moon reflected in a trail of fragments on still waters... Exhaling, he spies a mountainous island shrouded in mist on the horizon.

"Is that it?" Swan calls up to him.

"Aye. Neverland."

He remains at the helm, watching the others go about this and that all with the island never leaving his sight. It's even darker than he remembers it being before. Without the enormous moon shining down on them, they would be encased in darkness, the starlight faded. He doesn't need them, not with the island so close.

"I'll be below decks," Rumpelstiltskin says to him, limping over to him.

"Why?" True enough, "be below decks" does not usually translate to, "rummage through the captain's quarters," but Killian isn't sure if the snide comment about being allowed to live was as sincere as his own end of the truce. It wouldn't take much for a Dark One to abscond with a single hair or an often-handled possession to brew a hellish curse.

"Well, we did just go through a portal. Perhaps I need to go sit down and put my head between my knees for a spell."

"Are you asking permission?" Oh, he knows he's not, but nausea becomes the Dark One about as well as a sea shanty would for the most foreboding island he's ever known. Rumpelstiltskin chuckles.

"Consider it a courtesy, especially since we're not your crew."

He disappears, his absence allowing Killian to concentrate on the far more urgent task of just how to sail into the island undetected. The element of surprise, for all intents and purposes, does not exist in Neverland, the place almost an extension of Pan himself. He leans down on the wheel, slowing into the gradual turn. The closest they can come to stealth here would be to start out where Pan pays little attention. The boy scouts the terrain and knows the land like a native animal, but water only concerns him as far as the springs and the sea. Parts of the rivers go through years of neglect—the low-hanging vines and lack of currents giving them a dead look. Streaming into one of the rivers could work...of course, they won't get anywhere fast that way, but it makes more sense to dock there and keep the ship hidden.

He'd stopped trying to figure out Pan ages ago, his Lost Boys so in awe of him they never divulged more information than they'd needed to to complete a task, so, unfortunately, he won't be able to offer a guess as to why Henry is here if asked. Killian had been fully grown when he'd first stumbled upon this cursed place and it unnerved him then and does so now, so it would have to be terrifying to a child, especially one that had had no desire to come here in the first place. Happy, beloved children don't end up in Neverland, and, for all the strangeness locked into this family, he didn't know of any child as beloved by so many people as Henry.

"Why are you slowing down? In case you didn't know, my son's life is in danger!" Regina, having stormed up to him, doesn't seem to appreciate a quiet, cautious approach.

"Oh, I know...my hot-headed queen." Her expression doesn't change. "The plan is to bring us to the far side of the island, link up with the widest part of the river and...then we sail right through, take him by surprise..." There's a fun thought, traipsing through the jungle with this woman so used to everyone else at her beck and call. More entertaining still is the idea of Rumpelstiltskin attempting it, crippled and perhaps used to finer things thanks to his luxurious Storybrooke life...save Henry or all die trying...he hates himself for laughing at it all. "The irony..."

"What irony?"

"I spent more time than I care to remember trying to leave this place to kill Rumpelstiltskin, and here I am, sailing right back into its heart, with him as my guest of honor. It's not quite the happy ending I was hoping for." And just what did you hope for, he asks himself. Instant happiness and freedom and all good things in the blink of an eye? He's above that, too aware of the uphill climb leading to those things. He won't look at Regina, patience really something beyond her understanding, so he scans his deck.

"Greg Mendell said something funny to me," she says, prompting him to take a glance in her direction as he's sure she doesn't mean "funny" in the comical sense. "He said I'm a _villain_, and that villains don't get happy endings." It's something he himself would have said, lifetimes ago. It's true. He knows it as fact, but, but he doesn't want to believe it, and this place, this nightmarish place, taught him belief can be its own entity. His eyebrows narrow at that. Sounds an awful lot like hope, mate, and since when do you dare to really hope for anything?

"You believe that?" she asks.

"I hope not, or we've wasted our lives," he says. He finds Swan in the same position she was in when he'd first scanned the deck, leaning over the rail, still as can be. Her back is to him, and it's an odd sort of position to be able to know what she's thinking about, although he can venture a guess or two, her son ripped away from her and the father of her child dead. Her parents approach her, the breeze lulling the ship to a crawl, allowing him to hear Snow's hesitant "hey" that seems to be in preparation for a discussion he is not meant to hear, and yet, it's not as if he can go anywhere at the moment. She looks at her husband once, most likely for strength, before speaking.

"What happened to Neal and Henry—it's not your fault. You can't blame yourself."

"I don't," she says, soft, but darker than he's used to hearing in her voice. "I blame you."

She's only shifted a little; likewise her parents have only flinched a little, a turn in a foot, a tensing in the shoulders. Both parties so eager to just magically become a family and avoid stepping over the other that it's built up and built up and now will all come to a head. He should find a way to leave, or yell down to them that if they wish to squabble, they should do it elsewhere, but Swan now twists her torso fully in their direction and there will be no interrupting.

"All this happened because I listened to you. You say good always wins? It doesn't. I didn't grow up in some fairytale land. My experience is different. That's all I can go on."

"And all we have to go on is ours," Snow says, summoning a smile, her hands in her pockets. "So if you would just let us share our wisdom..."

"I appreciate you _trying _to be parents, but we're the same age. We have equal amounts of wisdom." Her voice shakes and he can feel it, feel the way she feels about being cheated out of being their daughter, wanting a mother and a father to look up to and turn to and all it would take is for her to turn and march off in his direction for him to abandon the wheel and just hold her, to try to show her without saying the words that he feels her pain, that her pain is justified and normal and exactly what anyone would feel upon being abandoned. He knows.

"All I want is Henry back. I should never have broken the curse." Gods, she's crying. He can't see it but he can hear it, Emma Swan crying and he can't do a damn thing about it. "I should've just taken Henry and-"

"You're right," Snow says, nodding, tears in her own eyes. The prince bites his lip, his palms pressing harder into the rail. "Th-then you'd be together. We missed you growing up, Emma, and it haunts us every day."

"And that's why we're here now," the prince finally says. "We don't want you to have to through the same thing, too, and you won't. We are going to get our family back." He smiles a hopeful smile, but he's triggered something in her, for now she's springing back from the rail and shouting.

"How can you two be so infuriatingly optimistic?" He'd hear that over a strong wind any time, watching Snow's jaw drop at a loss for words.

"It's who we are," is all David has to say, although he says it with his head held high, leaving Killian to wonder if hope of anything, hope of any possible happy ending, is as stupid as the two of them are making it look.

"Why?" Emma shouts. "Ever since you got your memories back, ever since you remembered that you're Snow White and Prince Charming, your lives have...they've...well...they've sucked!"

"No, no, we found you." David nods to her.

"And lost Henry! And Neal, and countless other people!"

"Emma, the minute I let go of the belief that things will get better is the minute that I know they won't." They don't know how to comfort her. They can't know. That was taken from them as heartlessly as her childhood was taken from her. It's a pitiful situation from all sides and he, well, he can be harder on them, but he knows he shouldn't be. When, when would they have gotten to know her, really know her? When they were cursed, which sounds like an all-around state of confusion by all accounts considering they didn't even know themselves? When she and her mother were running around the Enchanted Forest spending all their energy in evading Cora? There is nothing that will improve anything until they're given that time, and time is something he can't provide.

"We'll find him," Snow assures her again.

"No, you won't." Rumpelstiltskin appears in front of him, not there a split second ago, now decked out in his crocodile suit, all ready and responsive to the land's magic like a good Dark One.

"Oh, that's a great use of our time, a wardrobe change," he mutters. Swan has turned and picked up a lantern to, he supposes, witness the change. Regina moves over as well as Snow and David.

"I'm going to get Henry."

"We agreed to do this together," Regina argues, outraged but still with a degree of fear in her eyes, the same as everyone else. So much for the Dark One's powers on their side, he thinks, shaking his head at him. He should have expected no less.

"Actually we made no such agreement." No, nor would you really honor it if you had, coward.

"Why are you doing this?" Swan asks.

"Because I want to succeed."

"What makes you think I'm going to fail?"

"Well, how could you not?" It's said so matter-of-factly and yet Rumpelstiltskin forgets the opposite is true. A great many things Emma Swan was not supposed to succeed in doing, she's done and come out alive, and he will not bet against a mother's wrath. "You don't believe in your parents, or in magic, or even yourself."

Ah. That's the real point, isn't it, he realizes, glancing down at the deck at the shame of realizing it. It's the only thing that gets in her way, trust. Trust in others and trust in herself.

"I slayed a dragon. I think I believe," she says, even with a rolling of her eyes. That's it, love. Prove him wrong.

"Only what was shown to you. When have you ever taken a real leap of faith? You know, the kind where there's absolutely no proof? I've know you some time, Miss Swan. And, sadly, despite everything you've been through, you're still just that... bail bonds-person, looking for evidence. Well, dearie, that's not gonna work in Neverland."

"I'll do whatever it takes." He believes her, knows it to be true, but she's listening to the demon only focusing on her flaws.

"Well you just need someone to tell you what that is," he hisses down to her. "Sorry, dearie. Our foe is too fearsome for hand-holding. Neverland is a place where imagination runs wild. And, sadly, yours doesn't." With a spin of his cane, he's gone, walking stick still rocking to and fro on the deck.

* * *

**A/N: Coming up? An epiphany of sorts.**


	20. So That the Waves Thereof Are Still

**A/N: This chapter contains some stronger language than usual. **

* * *

He can't do this. Bloody hell, what had he been thinking, traversing the rivers that will just magically lead to Henry? Even if they get that far, Pan won't let them leave, not now that they're already here to be played with until the nasty demon boy tires of them. Not a trace of Rumpelstiltskin remains on board and he expressed as much right before David volunteered to go do a quick search, Snow right on his heels.

"No sign of him."

"Yes, well, I bloody well told you that before you even left, didn't I?"

"Now what?" Regina asks, pacing the quarterdeck. "He expects us to just drop anchor and wait out here? No, no, I've dealt with Rumpelstiltskin more than any of you. He'll say he's looking for Henry, and he might be, but sure enough he'll find some way to gain more power and that'll be the end of it." She's talking to herself now, one hand on her hip, the other strewn across her forehead.

"No one's going to be just waiting out here for him to return," he says, quietly, shuddering at the way her voice feels too loud even though she's several levels away from yelling.

Swan's disappeared and not one of them has thought to go see how the crocodile's departure has affected her. She was just the single target of his malevolence, after all. He considers offering Regina the wheel only to see her resume her pacing.

"What say you, milady, to taking over, eh?" he calls over to Snow, balancing on the balls of her feet and darting her eyes to and fro in search of a way to be useful. As intrepid as her daughter, she doesn't waste time seeking clarification if he really meant her and runs up the steps. A quick tutorial is all she needs to be able to start from here and sail towards the river.

"Where are you going?" she asks when she's placed both hands on the helm, a guarded thrill obvious on her face.

"Just preparing for everything to come," he says. It shouldn't be too hard to find Swan, probably fuming somewhere, fighting off the weaknesses her Mr. Gold almost gleefully pointed out. He was over with betraying and cheating innocent people, especially the ones he liked, and if he was going to be any kind of friend to anyone, he could most certainly start with checking up on the woman his enemy humiliated in front of everyone.

It crosses his mind at the same time he hears some kind of movement from one of the crew's cabins that a peace offering is in order...something to officiate that all this...leaving in cells and stealing beans and the like was at an end.

To be truly honest with himself, he doesn't know Emma Swan well enough to know her particulars and tastes in most manners of things. What she likes to eat, what she likes to read, etc, but there is one item he knows she will need and just might appreciate.

He opens the door to hear her grunting and pulling herself up into the air by holding onto one of the beams, apparently straining her chest and arms as she does so. Her boots hit the floor.

"Oh, don't stop on my account."

"Wouldn't think of it," she pants, and while there is something aesthetically pleasing in the way she hoists herself back up, it doesn't appear entirely healthy right now.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting ready for a fight!" It comes out a little unrestrained, perhaps the...exercise taking more out of her than she'd anticipated. So this is what she does, he thinks, almost smiling. If only everyone had the luxury of being able to "get ready" for a fight.

"Well I've never known you to need to get ready for a fight. I thought it was a natural state." And right there—even with her back to him, he recognizes that "I am not amused" tilt of her head. "Don't let Rumpelstiltskin get you down, love."

Letting go, she drops from the beam and faces him.

"What do you want?"

"To give you something." He holds up the key to the chest where he keeps it, more convinced than ever it will do her some good. She needs it more than he does anyway, centuries of keeping it unseen, locked away, and while whatever her...status had been with Bae at the time of his death, she deserved some keepsake. Widows who had only seen their sailing husbands a few months of the year and busied themselves with other men were even given flags. "You know Baelfire and I once spent a lot of time together."

"He was always Neal to me."

"Yeah," he settles on her world's common word of affirmation, inhaling a little as he picks up the cutlass. "Right. This was his." He holds it out to her, catching the surprise in her eyes. She holds it in both hands, letting her hands sink an inch or so to take in its weight.

"I didn't realize you were sentimental," she whispers.

"I'm not." It's...something makes the cabin hot, stifling hot and suffocating. He pulls down some cups, a drink sounding so good right now, something to steady his nerves...and his hand, he notes, setting both cups down before reaching for his flask. Changing his mind, he holds Swan's cup out to her and gestures for her to hold it out. "I just thought you could use it for where we're going, you know, to fight." Uncorking the flask with his mouth, he pours her drink first, deciding there is nothing unusual at all about the way she watches him bring his arm up, like she's hanging onto every word and doesn't want to know why. To hell with the other cup.

"To Neal," he says, holding it out.

"To Neal." Their drinks thunk together before he sits opposite her, keeping his eyes on his flask and tracing the rim of it with his fingertip in order to avoid this searching expression she's giving him, and not the same one as when she searches for lies. It's that he can't pinpoint this one that flusters him. Ought to tell her a story, he suggests to himself, one of Bae, Neal, and make his time on the ship feel real to her. Ha ha, yes, and end it with someone she loves being dragged to the island into Pan's clutches. No, a moment of silence is what they would do in the old days when a member of the crew passed, so it is what they will do now. Besides, after her parents' reassurances and Rumpelstiltskin's discouraging remarks, silence might do her some good.

"How long was he with you?" she asks after a good two minutes or so.

"Long enough to know that I miss him, too." It begins to feel a little more natural, the two of them just sitting, breathing, letting the ship rock them a bit. Under other circumstances, it might have been fun to have taken her out in her own harbor, let her feel just what the Jolly Roger can really do, going through portals not her only specialty, talented old girl. It rocks harder, and he remembers no reef on this end of the island.

A thunderous smack hits their ears, like something thrust into the hull. Oh bloody hell, they'd waited this long to come?

He sprints back up, Swan just behind him, finding David and Snow struggling with the helm. The sky has clouded over, rain starting to spit down at them. From the corner of his eye, he sees the waves rolling higher. Harbingers of destruction, mermaids, he thinks. Never a calm day when they're around.

"What the hell are you two doing?" Regina bustles over to them with her arms folded.

"Trying to keep us steady!" Snow yells back.

"Hold on!" David shouts.

"Prepare for an attack!" he shouts to them, finally up to the wheel. And right when they're closer to land, infernal things.

"Be more specific," Regina demands.

"If you've got a weapon, then grab it," he grunts, ushering for Snow to move so he can steady the wheel. It is what they want, everyone occupied with steadying the ship and not fighting, but it really is all over if they capsize. There isn't much nautical know-how he trusts this haphazard crew to know, but he does believe they know how to fight.

"What is it? A shark? A whale?"

Get away from the rail, he almost shouts to Swan, but a massive wave requires all his strength to hold the wheel. They should be so lucky to have a run-in with just a shark...he won't wonder if her land's sharks are bigger.

"A kraken?" David tries.

"Worse," he says, able to catch his breath and stand upright. "Mermaids."

He can't look over the sides, but he knows what they see, the tails shimmering, vague black glimpses one minute shadowing the white sea foam, the next diving down underneath the ship. For that's how they hunt—a few scouts circling and testing the strength of the vessel to start, and then more and more of them following to finally capsize it or create enough leaks for it to sink...whichever comes first.

* * *

Cannon fire ceases. Blinding hissing fireballs fizzle out in the water. The shouts and frantic sounds of a crew pause and give way to a crushing silence.

"There. They're gone," Regina says.

Killian looks over the helm to the island, closer, the ship having sped along faster than he'd ever known it to go.

"Not all of them!" Snow calls as she and Swan struggle with a net. No, no, no, no...that's all they need, reason for the pack to come back, this time with a vengeance. Regina waves her hand and the net vanishes. In an instant, one of them lies tangled in the net in the center of the deck. Her arms bound, her tail flops erratically, her breaths shallow and loud. Realizing she won't drown, if that is even the right word, she controls her movements. Her shoulders and hands tense, but he can't pity one of them, not after the kind of damage he's seen them inflict.

"Get that thing off my ship!"

"No," Regina answers, approaching the mermaid. The others follow, curiosity getting the better of them. The mermaid's eyes widen, her mouth rounding out in fear. "Now we have a hostage."

"I hate to say it, but I'm with Hook. Those things just tried to kill us," David says.

"And perhaps we should find out why," Regina argues. He won't admit it out loud, at least not yet, but the only reason he can see for keeping her is to ward them off should they try a second attack, but that would be unlikely due to the amount of fireballs hurled in their direction. Loyalty runs dry among the mermaids, so he doubts they'll come back for this one for any non-practical reasons.

"How, by torturing her?" Snow asks.

"Well, if need be, sure."

She's freed herself. He switches arms so his hand can fly to his sword, but all she does is blow into a conch she's had with her. No possible way to reach for his sword and cover both his ears, all he does is cringe.

"What the hell was that?" Swan asks her.

"A warning," she finally speaks, confidently, he might note, her fear transformed into a steely resolve that's never good to be at the other end of. "Let me go or die."

David picks up the conch and crouches down asking her about what she just did.

"Let me go," the mermaid whines, batting her eyelashes for effect.

"Not until you tell us...or we make you tell us," Regina threatens back. Gods, what a waste. They ought to just bind her in the net and put her below decks until they reach land. The more he thinks on it, the more he decides they could come back for this one if only out of spite.

"Threatening her isn't the way to motivate her!" Snow argues.

"Well I'm all out of fish food." Enough of this.

"It doesn't matter if you get her to talk! You can't trust her. All mermaids are liars!"

"Of course they are," Swan says, expecting no less. Well, he never promised Neverland would be a stroll through the park.

"Maybe they're just scared of Pan. If we let her go maybe they'll be on our side!"

"Or maybe she and her friends will come right back to kill us."

"I don't need my friends to kill you," the mermaid interrupts with a sultry glare. "You'll kill yourselves. Now let me go!" Lightning strikes the second she says it, her bared teeth more akin to a shark's than a person's.

"What the hell..." David trails off.

"It's a storm. She called it! Don't let her go. She'll swim off and leave us all to die. At least with her we've got leverage." He doesn't even know who he's speaking to, but releasing her is no longer an option. She won't let herself die in the storm. He'll have to steer into the shallows at full speed to evade the oncoming waves, but as long as they all stand around her, as long as any of them could just pick her up and toss her over, he won't move.

David acts first, drawing his sword and positioning in front of the mermaid's throat.

"Stop the storm. Then we let you go." She shakes her head with a satisfied face. It jostles the prince enough that he stoops down to his knees and holds her from behind, the blade applying more pressure to her.

"That's more like it, Charming. Filet the bitch." Regina's approval seems to almost awaken the man. He springs up and glances at his sword, at his wife, back to the mermaid.

"No. No, we're not barbarians." The lightning doesn't give a whit for morality of any kind, flashing again, closer. If the current rollicks them farther from the island...well, he doesn't know what to do if they end up that off course.

"What we're going to be is dead!" Regina cries.

"Hold on! I'm turning it around!" he shouts down to them. It doesn't have to be a dramatic turn, just a narrower angle to the island's edge. "I've outrun many a storm!" If they can only reach the shallows, he'll throw her overboard himself and not give any of it a second thought. He can hear Regina and Snow's voices, but the thunder clap outdoes them.

"Yes, you are!" he hears the mermaid over the ever-increasing lightning strikes. "And you brought this death upon yourselves!"

"This is why we should free her!" Snow cries.

"That feel-good nonsense, Snow, might play in the Enchanted Forest, but this, this is Neverland," Regina growls, the waves sending the Jolly Roger upward. There won't be anything he can do if they get too far out of control, the mermaid's knowing face not exactly a comfort.

"Control your grip, pirate!"

"It wasn't me, mate! It was the ship!" Bloody hell, the ship had never felt so uneven, so off-balance. Without even a drop of rain yet, water pools around the heels of his boots. "We're taking on water!"

"Now can I resume killing her?" Regina bellows to anyone who might care to, oh, not start trying to patch wherever the leak is. They should be moving, the mermaid an afterthought now. One of them will need to man the helm while the others find the source of the leak and begin mending it. A few buckets around for bailing might be a bit more useful than a mermaid carcass, too.

"You kill her and her kind has a personal vendetta against us!" Snow yells over the howling wind.

"The queen is right. They've already tried killing us!" He can't help but be sucked back into the squalor despite Swan's shrieks for them to stop. She screeches for them to think things through.

"I already have." Killian looks over to see a block of wooden mermaid that wouldn't be out of place beneath the prow of a ship.

* * *

Cold grips his chest and refuses to let go. It presses on him so hard he feels he'll suffocate. She's not moving. Swan is not moving in spite of her parents' desperate hold they have on her. Pale and soaked, she looks...small...and now she, she can't be...what about Henry? They won't find him without her. They're lost without her. He's lost without her. "Come back" is the only rational thought that claws its way over the panic. Please, Emma, we, I can't...

Before he finishes his frenzied thought, she throws her head back and lurches forward, coughing out the seawater. Her eyes are bulged and she's shivering something fierce, but he can breathe and her parents can smile. Good, now he can shake her for the stupid, reckless...undeniably successful attempt to end the murderous rage that had overtaken the rest of them. Moonlight outlines one of the dark foreboding clouds hanging over them, illuminating her face.

"I told you," she croaks, proving the infuriating woman can even calm the seas. He'll not ignore her again, can't ignore her again. She frightens him too much.

Snow holds the back of Emma's head and David holds onto her arm as they help her sit up, more sea water bursting out of her mouth.

"Regina, can you dry her off?" Snow asks her, wiping tears from her eyes. Nodding, speech having fled from her, she waves her hand and he watches her clothes regain their shape rather than hang off of her. Her hair fluffs out and thickens, so she finger-combs it behind her ears. Ships and services offered without so much as a second thought, Neal's memory and a desire to help certainly motivation enough, but gods...his stomach and chest still tie themselves in knots over the very idea that she could have been gone, even as her father wraps his jacket around her shoulders and she lets her head fall on him as she catches her breath.

"Can we get to land or not?" Regina breaks the silence and he must be the captain again, but his eyes won't leave her, not just yet.

"Ship's damaged. We'll have to anchor and take a longboat. That won't eat up much time."

"Think you can stand?" David asks Emma, and she nods. Of course she can stand, and she stands without anyone's assistance, something contemplative and ethereal about her now, not the same as the simmering anger she bottled up at the start of the voyage. This kind of calm is real, perhaps a temporary confidence.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Regina bellows at her just as he starts to head towards the capstan. "Just jumping into a stormy ocean? What is wrong with you? Why would you do that?"

"Because I'm fucking stupid," Emma murmurs, her voice still gravely and weak, but the way she smirks, at herself, and gives the queen a gentle eye-roll prompts a laugh out of him, and he's never wanted to kiss anyone as much as he wants to kiss her right now.

He's able to lower the anchor himself and starts for the lines to prepare a longboat. She comes over and stands across from him, throwing her arms up to catch the line and help him pull. It's without words, not needing them. He pauses for just a second at the realization all he has to do is dip his head and he'll be able to feel the tip of her nose against his face. He can see the drops of seawater clinging to her eyelashes.

"Sorry the ship's damaged," she says.

"I don't think you have anything to apologize for," he answers, and he knows. He knows Cora was right what feels like ages ago when she blatantly accused him of caring for her, that whatever it is about Emma Swan that makes everything feel a little brighter and more hopeful goes beyond simply liking her.

"Glad to have you back with us, love."

* * *

**A/N: Coming up? Camping "fun."**


	21. Bearings

**A/N: Due to a hectic week here at home and the fact I won't feel that comfortable about going much further into Season 3 without seeing 3x17 and all the delicious details it will give me, there probably won't be an update on this story until next week. I need to slow my posting time. Don't worry. The next six chapters are all written and things are going well, so I expect smooth sailing. Coming up? Hook starts a fight with a tree. You'll find out why.**

* * *

Everything between leaving the ship and arriving on this beach blurs together, the night too still and heavy to keep one's eyes from scanning the entire place for shadows, both the dependent and independent types.

"We don't have to do it this way." Leave to Regina to break the silence, although in this case he'll thank her for it. It reels one's attention back into the here and now. "I can fix the Jolly Roger. My magic is powerful enough to execute the pirate's plan."

The pirate... He hangs back and takes one more glance at the ship, the feeling that he won't be seeing it for a while growing ever close to a certainty. Swan has distanced herself from the rest, eyes only on what lies ahead, just like the beanstalk. Her mind is hard at work, yet he'd be at a loss if she ended up truly considering Regina's words.

"A sneak attack? Let's not be naïve. Save your magic. We'll need it later because Pan already knows we're here," she says, her calm still intact. Her eyes move along the line they've formed. "It's time to stop running. Gold was right. This land is run on belief. We've all been so busy being at each other's throats to be believers. I was just as wrong as anyone else," she adds, averting her parents' eyes. They lean forward but don't move while she finds words in the sand, either words or courage. "It's time to start believing, not in magic, but in each other."

Then they'll perish, he considers arguing. Her concentration will be wasted on keeping them all in check rather than her son. But then they did band together earlier...and for his part he'll behave, will follow her around this nightmarish place without complaint if it will result in Henry's recovery.

"You want to be friends?" Regina asks, and he hears just the hint of hopefulness in her voice, that maybe it wouldn't be too far out of the realm of possibility. "After everything that's happened-"

"I don't want or expect that," she says, shaking her head. "I know there's a _lot _of history here, and a _lot _of hate."

No more from his end, never again.

"Actually, I quite fancy you from time to time when you're not yelling at me." It's the most impatient glare he's ever received, but he deserves it. With a slow blink, she switches her eyes over towards the others.

"We don't need to be friends. What we need to know is the only way to get Henry back is cooperation."

"With her?" David blurts out, done rubbing his temples and, Killian presumes, considering himself patient enough to hear the idea to now bring some "sense" into the equation. Although, to be fair, he thinks, Regina's plagued their family for longer than Emma had even been alive, and if he were David, his patience might have run its course, too. "With him?"

Oh, well that's just a fine thing to say to your ride over here in the first place...

"No, Emma, we have to do this the _right_ way."

Yes, he sniffs, because Pan has in his possession a guide to how to kidnap children and fight off anyone mad enough to try to get them back.

"No, we don't," Swan almost snaps. "We just need to succeed, and the way we do that is by just being who we are—a hero, a villain, a pirate...it doesn't matter which because we're going to need all those skills whether we can stomach them or not!" She's right, the practicality of her words taking precedence even over this lighter...absurdly lighter...feeling floating around in his head and his chest that she differentiated between a villain and a pirate, that somewhere in her mind, even if it's in the darkest, most neglected corner, she sees him in a grayer hue than the woman who both cursed her family and raised her son.

"And what's your skill, Savior?" Regina tosses at her. For one moment that lasts longer than he feels it should have, he sees her fist clench. The faintest sneer washes over her face. But she inhales, and whoever she was before the petty question returns.

"I'm a mother, and now I'm also your leader, so either help me get my son back or get out of the way." She doesn't wait for a response, a far cry from the woman he'd seen cow down and try to make peace through self-deprecation back outside the eatery in Storybrooke his first night there. Any animosity for the circumstances her parents harbor is as if it never existed. They both beam with pride and follow her into the brush with weapons at the ready. It feels fun, almost, charging in with them on a mission. He throws Regina a little nod, prompting her out of her sulky position, and wonders if Pan has ever seen anything like Swan in his life.

He allows Regina to bring up the rear, recalling the last time she was behind him resulted in a near-lethal run-in with Maleficent, so instead he busies himself with becoming reacquainted with the terrain. Much of Neverland looks the same to a novice, but although its jungle often feels endless, it eventually gives way to mountains capped with snow, forests so thick their canopies obscure the sky, and lagoons so serene and lush it's tempting to stay and just sit and breathe in one in spite of the mermaids retiring there on occasion to sun bathe and comb out their hair.

Henry won't be in any of those places. Pan will have taken him somewhere more remote, made camp in some hidden clearing, probably surrounded by as much dreamshade as possible. That's what worries him more than the wild hogs or the shape-sifting sirens. Neverland's darker than it's ever been before and so the thorns will be even easier to bump into at any time on this trek.

"Hook, come up here. I need you."

There won't be much he can provide her from memory without the aid of a map, but he's so tired of disappointing her. She's too used to disappointment and low morale is not something she can afford here.

"Any ideas?" she asks.

"He'll keep him in the jungle, to be certain. He's the most hidden away that way." He closes his eyes briefly, the lay of the land reentering his mind section by section. "There's a ridge, one of the highest points on the island without venturing into the mountains. Lookout Point, creatively. That should give us some indication of where Pan's been, is, if we're lucky."

"How far is it from where we are?"

"Not far. Come. Follow me."

David squeezes between them up to the front and begins hacking away at the vines. Well, let him, he decides. Someone will have to do it anyway.

"What's happening? Where are we going?" Regina all but pushes past Snow.

"Place called Lookout Point," Swan says, glancing downward. He follows her eyes until he sees Regina's...very pointy boots. "You going to be okay to walk a while?"

Rolling her eyes, the queen lifts one leg after the other and taps the heels of her boots, extending the hell out into a rounder, thicker bottom. She smirks at Emma and, for once, Emma smirks back.

"Good to see you know how to 'rough it.' Let's go."

It occurs to him that Pan will have remembered the ridge, which will be unfortunate indeed since one can't see the full scope of the island otherwise, unless one braves the steep mountains or knows how to fly. Minutes into the walk, a faster pace set now that some are more magically-suited for the exertion, he feels the incline. It helps to serpentine, but the foliage is too compact.

"The ridge is just a few hundred paces up ahead," he calls back to the others.

"Do you really think we're going to be able to see Pan's hideout?" Swan calls back.

"From there, we should be able to see everything, including where he's keeping your son." He looks back to gauge the incline. Steeper than before, everyone looking smaller.

"You know I could have just poofed us up here in an instant," Regina grumbles, and if anything will try his patience about this whole endeavor, it will be grumbling. Sorry, Your Highness, that you have run out of lackeys to go find your own son for you. He will give her reasoning only once, and that should be plenty.

"Where? Have you any idea what's up here or anywhere?" "Poof" them right into the coils of a python. "There are dangers all about. Only I can guide us past them."

"He's right. Hook's lived here before. If he says hiking up is the best way, then we listen," Swan says with a little shrug. He can't disappoint her, and he can't leave Henry here. The exact reasons for Pan doing what he does escape adult thought, but he's never had to seek out children before. Not like this, anyway. Children from various lands learn varying stories, stories of a land that promises fun and freedom if only they will let go of what they know to reach it. That it ends badly, always, and the pitiable creatures were all but tricked into it, but that's how Pan has always operated before, on trickery and deception, not using others to steal away a child. The only, only, solace he can find in the horror that Henry is an anomaly is that Pan won't kill him right away. Whatever he wants with him, he could have killed him before even leaving Storybrooke if that was the goal.

And he wouldn't wish the pain of having a loved one killed in Neverland on anyone.

The moonlight catches some bramble and thorns up ahead. Ah, the start of the dreamshade. He lets out a groan. That will slow their pace. David moves to slash at them.

"No," he orders, catching his arm, only to be rebuffed. Stubborn ass... "No!"

"I can handle a couple of thorns!"

"That's dreamshade." He can't even look away from it, the inky poison dribbling off the points too thick to even resemble dew. It reminds him of when he once saw a young milkmaid drop her pitcher and shower a few bushes with cream. "It's not the thorns you have to worry about. It's the poison they inject you with. This plant is the source of the toxins I used on the Dark One."

"The poison that almost killed Gold?" Swan asks, holding up the lantern. She and her mother wear the same leery expression.

"Indeed. I used a concentrated dose. In its natural form death would be much slower and far more painful." He scans around for an opening, settling on slicing through the weeds with dying heather to his right. It won't take but a few steps to avert the poison. "I suggest we go this way."

"We'll go this way." David points with his sword to the same surroundings, only to their left, and for once he's glad to see Regina rolling her eyes. At least one other finds it irritating, displeasing company as she is. Sighing, Snow and Emma follow her.

"Your father's a distrustful fellow," he can't help but note.

"He's just not used to working with the bad guys," she says, a tilt of her head and one eye on the path before them indication she doesn't quite share David's sentiment.

"I can assure you on this island I am not the bad guy."

"Yeah, well, Pan's not supposed to be one either." She moves along, nonplussed at the very idea of Pan as anything besides a ruthless, unscrupulous hellion. Surely Neal warned her not to listen to whatever charms Pan throws at their world to entice the children to come. Logic dictated that at some point any whimsical stories would evolve into frightening cautionary tales, Pan not unlike the monster that lurks beneath every child's bed.

"What possibly gave you that idea?"

"Every story I ever heard as a child." This tone of hers, it conjures up the notion of her, smaller, being whisked away to Neverland even though Pan seems to prefer boys. Having no one to love her or protect her for so long, it wouldn't have been too far out of the realm of possibility.

"Well, they got it all wrong. Pan is the most treacherous villain I've ever faced." Rumpelstiltskin included, he refuses to admit out loud, even to her. Dark One, certainly, but child catcher, never. Gods, stories of Pan being good and virtuous and Neverland a paradise...no wonder she had heard of Captain Hook, he thinks, smiling. "Tell me something, love."

She stops, giving him time to catch up to her.

"In these stories, what was I like?" She rolls her eyes one of two ways, he notices, sincere frustration and this one, finding something amusing. Wouldn't that be a lovely thing for those lips to confess—a young and innocent fancy to him when she thought him fictitious. "Other than a villain. Handsome, I gather?" She's looking down at the ground...good sign...but her eyebrows fly up.

"If waxed mustaches and perms are your thing..."

She continues the hike, leaving him to wonder if these occasional bursts of her seeming to talk of an alternate universe will ever become a thing of the past.

"I take it from your tone, perms are bad?"

She doesn't answer him, no time considering her father calls up from the summit. He catches up and gazes out on what appears to be a labyrinthine deathtrap even to him; he can't imagine what new eyes make of it. Pan did like to camp a good distance from the springs, he recalls, squinting and stretching his neck. One of his favorite games, ordering a Lost Boy to go get some water and then stalk him like prey and "thin him out" if he didn't do it in a timely-enough fashion. He retrieves his spyglass.

"Pan's lair should be just right..."

"Where? All I see is jungle," Regina waits, looking ready to stamp her foot. He opens it with his mouth and peers out, agreeing with her in regards to the vastness of the Dark Jungle. The boy preferred hollow trees, only about five altogether large enough for him and his followers to slide down into the underground. Now...

"It's...uh, grown so much since I last stepped foot in Neverland." Bloody hell, can't do anything good just once? Fate should grant him this one, a boy's well-being at stake, after all.

"So this nature hike was for nothing."

He waits for it, Emma's, Swan's exasperation, maybe an accusation of posturing with a dash of "why aren't you better than this" thrown in, but she doesn't open her mouth.

"Hook may have led us astray," David begins, and he just about can't bear this. He won't keep her from her son again, _won't_, and yet he does anyway. "But at least we're in a good position to start combing the jungle."

"Not exactly. The Dark Jungle's the last place you want to set foot. We'll have to go around it." They can search the fields, mazes of tall grass the smaller children like to get lost in...and then scream for Pan to end the game and fish them out. It's unlikely he's keeping Henry in the center of the jungle anyway, he thinks. Too many dangers all too willing to rip Pan's newest prize into shreds. But remote and hidden away, of course. Going around the Dark Jungle could take months if they plan on leaving no stone unturned. "In order to do that, we're going to need our strength. I suggest we make camp."

"You want to sleep while my son is out there suffering?" Regina bellows.

"If we want to live long enough to save the boy..." Emma's face closes itself off to him and to everyone right now, her unreadable expression unknowingly revealing her deepest fears. "Yes."

* * *

It escaped him at some point that Snow isn't quite a stranger when it comes to surviving the wilderness. She builds shelters faster than the rest of them, humming to herself as she hovers between assisting David and supervising Emma's work. It's an evil thought, but if Henry were with them and they were all here for some different purpose, the princess might consider it prime family bonding time. She brushes away one last section of leaves before surveying the camp.

"Well, as long as there isn't a hurricane or anything like that, these should hold up," she says, her mouth moving like she planned to say more. He raises an eyebrow at her wringing her hands. "Before we all turn in...bathing might not be such a bad idea."

"Oh, good, spa treatment before getting my beauty sleep," Regina mumbles.

"You laugh, but we need to stay as dry and clean as we can." For all the fretting motherhood and, he supposes, grandmother-hood, adds, he rather likes Snow when she can demand one to listen without raising her voice. "We don't have a lot of sets of clothes and as Emma said earlier, you need to save your magic for times we need it. Also, if anyone has a scratch or a cut from the hike, it would be better to look at it right away than let it fester and turn into something we really won't have time to deal with later."

Folding her arms, Regina sighs.

"Fine. Ladies first then?"

Emma's been terribly quiet, scarcely a word even when learning how to build the shelters in the first place. She jerks her head around every so often in search of a bodiless noise. Not used to the crying, he thinks. The others remain oblivious to it, which makes sense. Regina's mother had rather the exact opposite problem of abandoning her daughter and, while he doesn't know much about Snow or David's upbringing, he doubts royalty could just abandon their children and be discreet about it.

"There's a pond about fifty paces in that direction," he says, finishing the bottom layer of his makeshift cot.

"Fresh water?" Snow asks.

"It's all fresh water inland, milady."

Emma follows her mother and Regina, winding around one more time like someone called her name.

"Are you cut anywhere?" David asks him, setting down one more armload of firewood in the center of camp.

"No. You?" He pays little attention to David shaking his head, too busy rolling his eyes at what needs to come out of his mouth next. "It'll be best to not wander too far off alone. Pan seems to be a believer in safety in numbers."

"If you need someone to sing you a song so you can relieve yourself, you're just out of luck," is David's reply. His expected reply. "You can take the first watch, too. If we're ambushed, you'll be the only one to not lead us running blindly into just some other trap."

"That was my intention." A thought hits him that it might be amusing to toy with the man a little and ask if he's sure the nefarious pirate won't just slit all their throats in their sleep, but now is not the time, and he most certainly does not want to share his watch with the prince.

"And..." David marches from one end of the camp to a deer-made path woven into the jungle just out of the clearing. "That's where your post is going to be. I'll take the one after you." It's about as far from the rest of the blankets and mats as can be.

* * *

The infernal crying teases him, a wail fading out to almost nothingness only for an unrestrained sob to take its place. There's no way to really mark time in a place where time does not exist, so he'd started counting in his head to distinguish minutes from just endless night, but that had grown too tedious. He's decided he will just keep his watch until his body feels ready to plop over and then he'll wake the prince.

"Hey! Hey, wake up! Guys!"

He leaps to his feet, hand on his sword. He knew it—he _knew _two should have kept the same watch, one at each end and now it's too late. He tramps through some of the tall grass only to return to David and Snow rubbing their eyes and staggering to their feet while Swan rouses Regina, nudging her in the arm. Her eyes dart up at him and she sprints towards him, holding some parchment or something in her hand.

"Pan was here," she pants, stopping right in front of him, and he's speechless. Pan, in and out. Appearing only to her. She holds up the parchment as everyone else gathers around them. "He gave me this. He said it was a map to Henry, only that...nothing's going to show up on it..." she trails off, shaking her head at herself. "Nothing's going to show up on it unless I 'stop denying who I really am,'" she says in one breath.

"Pan confronted you?" Snow breathes. "Why didn't you wake one of us?"

"Not for lack of trying..." He can almost see the words "I can take care of myself" on the tips of her lips, but she clamps them shut and turns to him instead. "Is it legit?"

"He is fond of puzzles," he says, peering over at the map, blank, sure enough. "Although he's just as fond of luring someone away from camp only to capture them." He barely hears David state he and Snow will be scouting the area for evidence of any such trap in place since Swan is reading him, staring at him with that hard, deciphering look in spite of no lie having been told.

"I'll tell you the next time I see him," she murmurs, holding the map with both hands and ambling over to a rock. She stretches it out and smooths the creases as if there are actual words on it. Squatting down, she holds her head in her hands as she collects her thoughts, so he will do the same, sitting down while Regina paces.

"He so likes his games," he says out loud. Denying who she really is...the object of the game as cryptic as the rules.

"What game? There's nothing there," Regina says after walking behind Emma and glancing at it herself.

"If he said there's a map on this parchment, then there is."

"Great," Emma huffs. "So if I just stop denying who I really am, whatever that means, then we'll be able to read this thing."

"But how do we know Pan won't use it to lead us straight into a trap?" Regina counters.

"Because he doesn't need to. This whole island's his bloody trap." He'll grant Regina credit where credit is due, but the woman over-complicates everything, not exactly a tactician. She forgets villainy can be so ridiculously easy, requiring very little action at all. For example, he thinks, standing up, killing her before this is all over sounds easier and easier with each passing second.

"There's no sign of him anywhere." David returns, sword and lantern out, and Snow catches up to him with her bow and quiver.

"Any luck with the map?" she asks.

"Don't hold your breath."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Swan snaps at her.

"Don't you see what he's doing? Every second we spend talking about this is another second we're not looking for my son!"

"You got a better idea?" It's nearly a growl and he sighs. If Emma Swan truly loses her patience with them, it's all over.

"Magic."

Oh, bloody hell, this again? David's exhale is loud enough to rustle the branches and Swan looks about ready to bang her forehead into the broad side of her rock. Childish Regina—inexplicably spoiled for such a love-deprived person. He begins to wonder if they'd have fared better if she'd been the one to leave and Rumpelstiltskin were with them now. "If there's a lock on there, I'll find a way around it."

Emma slams her hand over the map.

"Pan said it had to be me."

"I'd listen to Emma, love. Breaking Pan's rules would be unwise." Who knows what the demon child has in mind for just this occasion?

"Sadly, I agree with the pirate," David says...and he supposes he should fall on his knees and thank the Good Prince for being of one mind with his lowly self for one brief shining moment.

"I'm winning you over. I can feel it," he shoots over in his direction, enjoying the disgust mounted on David's face.

"And your magic doesn't exactly have a gentle touch, Regina," Snow adds, and this seems to give the queen something to consider.

"Use it on the map and it might blow up in all our faces," David says.

"Well that's a risk I'm willing to take," she growls back at them, hand still on her hip.

"Well I'm not." Emma stands, her tone as soft and yet commanding as Snow's was earlier with the shelters. "If I'm the one who's supposed to figure out this thing, I need to do what Pan said."

"Great..."

"She'll get there!" Snow exchanges a look with her daughter, the latter beginning to get swept away with doubt. "Hey. Don't give up. If he's playing a game, you can win."


	22. Lost

**A/N: Hi, everybody! Still expect more spaced-out updates, but I got a lot done today and while the part of the story I am currently writing DESTROYED me, I plowed through and got it done. So...here is an update. I hope you like it and leave a review!**

* * *

Who is Emma Swan? He'll start there, in his head, of course, for she's seated atop her rock in almost a meditative position, eying every corner of the blank parchment. She's capable, resourceful, beautiful, a leader who distrusts her supporters... His legs won't let him sit right now, so he shuffles around the other rock, almost frightened to address the question himself. He remembers meeting her in the Enchanted Forest and gathering all his thoughts into one first impression just to be able to predict her next move. Shrewd, tenacious, strong and yet broken, passionate and yet cold—the long-lost princess of a kingdom and simultaneously an orphan.

"My name is Emma Swan," he hears her breathe into the map.

"I'd wager the solution to Pan's riddle is a bit more complicated than that." He gives her a smile. She's so many things. One of them is bound to be right, define who she is.

"Don't hold anything back," Snow encourages. Easier said than done, he thinks, all of them standing around her waiting for the answer to present itself. She takes a deep breath.

"I'm Henry's mother. I used to live in Boston, and I was a bail bondsperson. I'm now the sheriff of Storybrooke."

"That election was a sham!" Regina scoffs, leaning up against a tree off away from them. "Are we really doing this?"

"Don't you think maybe you're leaving some things out?" Snow prods, gently, nervously, but he's inclined to agree. The map's not asking for your biography, love. Facts that anyone could stumble upon won't amount to one drop of ink. He longs to know what she thinks of herself, her life such a mysterious whirlwind to him. Perhaps if he heard it all from her, he could help her into an answer.

"I'm the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, which apparently makes me the product of True Love." More a testament to them than to her, but a mind-boggling one nevertheless. "I was born in the Enchanted Forest and I was sent through a portal in a tree so that I could break a curse."

"And you were able to break the curse because you're the..." David springs up, failing miserably at hiding a grin. Snow follows suit, her face lit up with pride.

"Come on. You don't need to be embarrassed to say it."

"Say what?" he asks. Savior? Pan's not going to be interested in that...neither is Emma.

"The 's' word," Regina adds. But it makes no sense. Why would Pan give her a puzzle meant to build her up, remind her to believe in herself? Morale can be overrated, to be sure, but a captain would rather take on an unsure enemy than one brimming with self-assurance. Whatever the answer, it lies with something more humble, more humiliating, than her grand Savior status.

"I'm the Savior," she says without any doubt. He looks over her shoulder down at the map, hoping he's wrong and that this little session is all over and they can proceed. Blank.

"I don't get it. I said I'm the Savior. There's nothing I've denied more than that," she says to her parents.

"It's okay. We'll figure it out," Snow says.

"No, you won't." Regina storms ahead and snatches the map right out of Emma's hands.

"Regina!"

"But I can. I'm beginning to think there isn't a map on here. That doesn't mean it can't lead us to Henry." She lifts her hand and strokes the air above the map as if it were an invisible animal.

"I thought we decided that using magic was a bad idea!" David blurts.

"For once I agree with the prince," he can't resist. David balks at him, just as he knew he would. "Well, I told you we were getting along."

The map begins to glow the more Regina wiggles her fingers over it.

"What the hell are you doing?" Emma whispers to her.

"A locator spell. This parchment belonged to Pan. It'll lead us to him." The map, still glowing, hovers in the air before wafting on an unseen current. It moves at a snail's pace and yet retains a weightless consistency as it starts right into the Dark Jungle. Killian glances over at Regina who couldn't look more satisfied with herself.

"So it appears we will be venturing into the Dark Jungle after all," he sighs, pressing his lips together. Well, if there is any consolation to be found, it's that they won't be in there for very long since Pan will undoubtedly kill them for cheating.

"You mean the place you told us never to set foot." It's not a question. Swan looks like she's imagining the same horrid end for all of them, something jumping out from the shadows and swallowing them up before the map even has a chance to float out of sight.

"That's the one."

"Well, Emma, you said you wanted to be the leader," Regina says, approaching her with her hands on her hips. "Lead."

He'll go last; someone needs to guard their backs and it might as well be him. He finds no point in trying to orient himself as the Dark Jungle grows faster than any other region in Neverland. Only the map knows exactly where Pan might be fool enough to make camp...bloody hell, the boy probably counted on one of them losing patience and enchanting the map to do just this just so he could find an amusing way to eliminate them.

No one likes this, no one but Regina. Even with their backs to him, he can tell that. David continuously clenches his fingers around the grip of his sword while Snow scurries ever closer to her daughter, right on Emma's heels.

"Ready to thank me?" Regina asks when the map makes a wide turn.

"Actually, yeah," Emma says, and he shakes his head.

"If you'd let me do it sooner, maybe we'd have found him by now..." They catch up to the map, hovering stiffly over one spot, a narrow path concealed by leaves and roots ahead. "Wait. He's there. Pan. I can feel his smugness."

David is the first to move, nudging past Regina with a surprising amount of gentleness before he draws his sword.

"Shall we?" he asks the rest of the group. "While we still have the element of surprise?" Surprise. Of course, we do. Pan and his miscreants will just be sound asleep deciding to throw all caution to the wind and leave Henry unattended. Even the others hesitate for a moment before Regina follows. Emma and Snow hang back. It's when he takes a few steps forward and nearly faces them that he can see the anxious look they share. Assuring them will do no good, but perhaps a bit of anxiety will be a good thing.

"Careful," he warns. "He may look like a boy, but he's a bloody demon."

The trail winds around longer than he expected, which renders the map's premature stopping portentous. A basic run-of-the-mill spell like a locator spell should work without any complications and no one asks why they are continuing on...because they know the answer, he decides. Pan will be on the other side, his own magic too powerful for Regina's little parlor trick. A few lights silhouette the trees up ahead, but if they are the lights to a camp, they've wandered too close to not face any obstacles.

"No one's here," Snow finally says, now the one bringing up the rear. "Maybe your spell was wrong, Regina."

"Yes. Blame me. Again." Well, if she won't allow Snow to blame her, he'll decidedly be the next in line. A clothes line comes into view, a few bowls, soot from a fire... A deserted camp is better than a populated one as far as a confrontation goes, but Henry wouldn't be left alone. Odd place to set up camp...or even stage a camp, he thinks, forced to look down at the ground to avoid sliding down the steep decline.

"Guys." He follows Emma's gaze to a boy off in the distance. "Is that... Henry!" She rushes for him. Regina rushes for him. It happens too slowly and too quickly at the same time—Pan turning around and all but modeling Henry's coat, his smile fierce in judgment.

"Hi, Emma."

It chills him, hearing that voice again after so many years, and uttering her name of all things.

"Where the hell is Henry?"

"You broke the rules! That's not fair. Bad form!" he scolds, shuffling around, making them watch him. "I expected more from you, Captain."

"Aye, and you'll get it." Suddenly driving his hook into Rumpelstiltskin pales in comparison to plunging it right into the brat's throat and ripping his voicebox right out.

"Give Henry to me!"

"Sorry, can't. Don't you know? Cheaters never win."

He doesn't even need to crow, cursed youth. His Lost Boys hoot and holler and surround them with blazing torches and bows at the ready. Indeed they had been counting on them doing just this. They stomp through the foliage with their clubs and staffs, all choosing to be pieces in Pan's games.

"Watch out for their arrows. They're laced with dreamshade," is all he can get out before the first array of arrows flies towards them, David's sword blocking the one nearest him. Dipping behind Snow, her own arrows whizzing by, he seeks out Felix. If Pan gives a whit for any one of his followers, it would be him, and lucky for him, Felix is also the boy he'd most enjoy killing. He draws his own sword and holds it out in front of him at the same time one of the arrows grazes David's torso.

No time to even process that. He turns away from where Regina's fireballs fly only to block Felix's club with his hook.

"Been a while, Captain!"

"Not long enough." It only gives him an inch of satisfaction, noticing Felix has aged a little since he'd last seen him. All children grow up except one, after all, but it won't make up for the cold-blooded massacre of a third of his crew. Nothing could.

He uses his hook to defend, his sword to disarm, each slitted throat from centuries ago more than enough motivation. His hook bends Felix's wrist, the club just about dropping from his grasp.

"You remember what I did to Rufio," he growls at him. "It's a far worse fate for you!"

The boy won't give up without a fight, but victory will only feel that much more delicious. A golden flash runs across his line of vision, Emma chasing one of the boys up one of the hills. It prompts him to bring his arm up again. A tall opponent, Felix takes advantage and relentlessly brings his club up over his head, so Killian must respond no matter how heavy his own arm begins to feel.

A whistle freezes the Lost Boys, sword, hook, and club at a standstill. He uses the...apparent retreat of the Lost Boys to search, spotting Emma near Pan, crouched down with one of the boys scrambling up and hiding behind the others.

"Remember what I told you," Pan says, approaching her. Get up, love, he wants to yell in spite of knowing Pan won't strike her. Not now, not like this anyway. "That map will show you where Henry is only when you stop denying who you really are. I'll make sure to send Henry your regards."

* * *

They return to camp and, for just a moment, Killian veers off to behind one of the larger tree trunks and digs his hook into it, chipping away at the bark with tears brimming in his eyes and he has no idea why. Back here, this place—it's like he never left, like whatever glimmers of hope he might have entertained when he decided to leave Storybrooke, even when they first arrived, ring hollow. He's back in this land without time, without adult logic applied to anything, that has Rumpelstiltskin alive and well walking about somewhere, that has Pan again taking other people's children without remorse, and it's been...it doesn't matter how long it's actually been because Emma could have died countless times over by now and he's bloody never useful enough at the moment to do anything about it.

He spins away from the tree and huffs a few times, fighting to stifle a cry that threatens to burst out of him. He runs his fingers through his hair the way she did when she sat with him on the way to the hospital—harshly, nails like talons to claw the thoughts away. What's she bloody _doing _to you, mate, he asks the ground, his lips dried and cracked.

He'll find no answers there. He knows where he _can _find answers, but his heart is racing fast enough as it is, so instead he just returns to the camp and finds her sitting next to her mother on a log, trembling a little. He couldn't provide her privacy on the ship and so he chooses to provide it to her now, busying himself with loosening and then tightening his hook.

"The map is working! We know where Henry is!" His head snaps in her direction and she runs to him. Her hair is flying, her eyes red-rimmed but full of life. Emma rejuvenated.

"Where?" Regina and the others crowd around her and sure enough, the map boasts coastlines and mountain symbols, curvy lines representing waves in places. She did it. She did it and is alive again, so he will be alive again and hold the corner of the map that she stretches out to him.

"Aye, we're here on the southern tip of the isle, the middle of the Dark Jungle. Pan's camp lies due north." X marks the spot, he smirks at the elaborate symbol.

"That's where he's keeping Henry," Emma says.

"What are we waiting for?" Regina asks.

"Well, the terrain's not exactly easy. There will undoubtedly be some nasty impediments along the way."

"We should prepare," David says after examining the map himself. "We only made it out of our last encounter because Pan let us." He leans over and catches Emma's attention. "We need a new plan."

"Agreed. It's time we stop playing his game and he starts playing ours."

"And if I disagree?" Regina brings up, and well, well, well, spirits renewed in every direction, the four of them at least attempting to work together and Regina supplying the petulance. A million retorts come to mind, he thinks, wondering why she still seems to be arguing for argument's sake when she is the one who raised the boy in question. It's not his place, but a swift slap in the face is the least wordy response he can conjure.

"Go ahead, but I think you know our best chance is together," Emma whispers to her. She's close enough to him he senses that not even her pulse had to rise to give her that answer. Close enough it's a stronger temptation than usual to touch her if only to remind himself she is still alive, not to mention brilliant. He'll not leave her side for the rest of the journey, literally this time, so done with keeping all his revelations about her to himself. Someone admires her, someone damn well wants her, and it's time she knew.

"You better be right," Regina says, leaving to gather up the supplies with the others. She lingers and he can't help but smile.

"Excellent show of patience, love," he says, folding the map and returning it to her. He needs to take a moment to relax before crossing through the rest of the jungle, before telling her much of anything. A drink would help. He reaches for his flask. "And that is what defeats a nasty little boy."

"I hope so." There's almost a laugh in her voice, perhaps a high from her achievement. Ladies first, he holds his flask out to her.

"Is rum your solution to everything?" Her tone, her little smirk—if he didn't know better he'd think she was being flirtatious.

"Well it certainly doesn't hurt." He takes a swig and holds it out to her again, shaking it for effect, sounds of pleasure emitting from his mouth to make sure she's aware she's missing out. She smiles for a split second before she accepts it and takes a healthy chug. Go ahead, you bloody deserve it.

"So just how did you unlock the map?" Her tongue slides across her upper lip, compelling him to hold his breath. He'd honestly be thrown for a loop if she flat-out divulged anything. He's sure he's right that Pan would want her to think less of herself, to think herself small and unimportant, maybe unwanted.

"I did what Pan asked." She even shrugs as she says it, coyness a new, intriguing facet to her. But each facet he uncovers means dozens more still buried and those are the ones he wants, all of them, every thought and feeling behind her gorgeous features, extra alluring in their delicacy.

"Just who are you, Swan?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she settles on a whispered question to a question after a few eyelash bats, handing his flask back to him. Gods, yes, he wants to know. He takes it back from her.

"Perhaps I would." Her face freezes into something akin to terror, having no idea what to do with his words, and honestly, he doesn't know much more than her at this point, just that he wants to know her, to know everything about her. Who she was before he met her, everything she thinks now, what she wants out of life when this is over... No, he does know this look. She's rebuilding her walls, not that it will take much since she'd only removed a brick or two. She sidles past him as though the exchange never happened and begins packing up the supplies.


	23. Old Faces

"Are these okay to eat?" Emma compares a darker, rounder berry in her fingers to the bumpy red ones in a cup.

"All the Neverland berries are edible," he says, plucking a few more off the bush across from her and dropping them into the cup.

"Really?"

Tapping the nearest twig of the bush with his fingers, he tries to read her face. After the way she walked off, terror-stricken, at his admission he'd like to know her better, he'd assumed she would avoid him, turn her back to him and the like just to emphasize how unknowable she thought she was. Paler than usual, her brow had been furrowed when she asked the question and, even more of a conundrum, she had approached him, sought him out. He rubs his neck and then his eye while forming a response.

"It's meant to be a paradise for children. Can't very well happen if they're romping about and then take ill to poisonous berries." He musters a shrug even though he feels he's spoken too rapidly. But she's here now, apparently all water under the bridge, so he smiles at her bemused face as she shakes her head.

"Paradise," she snorts.

"Isn't that close to the Neverland in your sanitized stories?" he asks, pulling her out of some reverie.

"Oh, it's, it's an island and full of jungles and things kind of like this...except it's not always night," she says with an eye roll. "And there's more, well, life, you know—animals, a big Indian village, fairies everywhere." An intriguing flash of fear sweeps across her face before it melts into something akin to a smirk, a slight blush forming. "The pirates are a little more devious."

His heart races. Flirtatious Swan? Raising an eyebrow at her, he waits for more. Her attention reverts back to the berries, so he mirrors her, dropping a couple more into the cup.

"How so?"

"I think it's kind of depressing to compare the real thing to the story," she mutters.

"It wasn't night all the time when I first came here," he says, stepping over to one of the low-hanging branches and gripping it, letting his fingers bear the weight of his arm as it dangles downward. "When it's day, it has a rugged sort of beauty to it, just as time went on, it became darker and darker until it was always evening and then always night." This gives him something to mull over. The memories prevent him from developing much of a fondness for the place...understatement...but if it were day, an ignorant newcomer might find it a pleasant sort of place; perhaps it could be if Pan were not part of it.

She's watching him while he speaks, for once just listening to the words rather than reading him, scrutinizing him and searching for some telltale sign of treachery.

"You wanted to know the next time I saw Pan. Well, I did."

"When?"

"Just a few minutes ago. He likes to dish out a good taunt." She clicks her tongue after she speaks and resumes the berry gathering at a much quicker pace. From her tone he senses she has no desire to share the exact words of the exchange, most likely how she unlocked the map having something to do with it, but he narrows his eyebrows at Pan targeting her when he's hardly bothered with the rest of them so far. Of course he'll wear her down first. Cutting the head of the monster off so the rest of it will fall...fortune seems to like their ragtag group, however, Emma not looking as flustered as she did just minutes earlier. He smiles.

"And the Pan you thought you knew was a gentleman?"

"Oh, stop already. Don't you Enchanted Forest people have any stories that have nothing to do with facts?" It's not angry. The realization strikes him hard, producing a broad grin on his face.

"Loads of stories, love. My brother and I were fond of the ones of ships that would go and visit the stars and discover all these different lands. Not like here. They were entire worlds, just far away, and some had cultures and populations very similar to ours and then others were more animal-like, descriptions that never even paralleled anything we'd ever heard of before. We'd read those together and then just sit and wonder if anyone on some star or moon elsewhere was doing the same thing." He laughs at the end of it and then freezes. All that spilled out of him in seconds and he hadn't mentioned Liam out loud for... He shuffles, suddenly wishing for a bottle or something to go fill with water. He...he's not ready to answer any questions spurred from telling her all that, which he finds rather ironic since he meant it when he told himself that he wanted to know everything about her. He dares to look up, only to find her shooting him a tentative smile that doesn't last long enough as she goes about her business and is almost ready to return to camp.

"In the book, you try to poison the Lost Boys with cake," she says, waiting for him to go back with her. He laughs, baffled at how just seconds ago he'd found sharing stories with her anything other than pleasant.

"I'd like to do that right about now."

* * *

Magic this, magic that. Magic, magic, magic. It's likely the reason the queen disagreed with the plan to track down Tinkerbell in the first place—severe lack of magic. It's been the background music of their hike for longer than it should have been. She'd pulled Emma back to speak to her about something, well, he won't tarry around with ambiguous terms. She'd wanted to coax her into approving of some magical plan that would result in yet again a violent disaster, that he was sure of even though he hadn't heard much of their murmurings. Tink knows her way around a dagger, but she's one person, not a horde of feral children.

Speaking of violent disasters, he hasn't yet had the chance to check David's injury. Killian's been in the heat of battle enough times before to know how one's focus stays on the danger at hand, not always the surroundings. Perhaps the arrow simply flew by him and hadn't grazed him at all. He's hearty for a prince, he'll give him that, used to long tedious stints outdoors. But the dreamshade can be surprising in how expertly it waits one out, and David has been holding his torso too often to be an idiosyncrasy.

He waits for the others to pass this time. They've switched positions enough times by now that it's no longer unusual for the leader to excuse him or herself to the back to catch a breath at the slower pace. Sure enough, David passes by clutching his ribcage.

"So are you going to tell her?" he asks.

"Tell her what?"

"I saw what happened to you, mate. Let me see." The fact he hasn't dropped dead already both relieves and horrifies him. The mere notion of being on borrowed time here—at least others had died not believing this place would be the last sight they would see.

David looks ahead toward the others before lifting his shirt without that suspicious glare he and his daughter are so practiced at giving...which does not bode well for what he'll be about to see, he thinks, wincing at the black, vein-like lines coursing just underneath his skin.

"The arrow barely nicked me."

"I'm sorry, mate."

_"See? Perfectly fine. I told you our king would never lie to us. Now let's collect our specimens and..." _

It's not that the pain went away. Not a day goes by that Liam doesn't enter his thoughts one way or another, but the freshness of it is as if it happened yesterday, that nauseating, heart-stopping terror of just watching him fight to keep from collapsing while standing there like an idiot letting him do it to himself...

"You know about how long?" David asks.

"Days. Weeks at most," he says. "You won't see summer."

_"I'm sorry, brother."_

So weak. Liam could make himself heard miles away if he used his command voice, clipped and assured, inspiring, even. The dreamshade reduced his voice to not quite above a whisper, the black poison swimming up his arm, chest, throat, consuming him... They'll watch him experience the same thing, Emma and Snow.

"It's a bad break, you might want to tell her..."

"No."

"You have to." How David just turns and continues the trek after hearing a death sentence escapes him, the stubbornness knowing no bounds. It's too painful, too personal to even fully contemplate a day like this, walking along, Henry's whereabouts still anyone's guess, only for the man to seize and slump to the jungle floor. Emma will break into a run and fall to her knees. Snow, Snow will panic. She'll give up. Part of her will die right along with him, if the True Love status is any indication. And they'll just have to trudge on without him, summon up all the strength they have left to rescue Henry.

"Maybe I don't have to," David murmurs, turning back toward him. "Pixie dust. You believe in this Tinkerbell's power?"

"Indeed, I do." He nods without hesitation. Tink will hear their plight and use whatever reserves she has to keep a husband and father, and grandfather, alive. He knows Tink. If she'd been in his place she'd have joined up with this family a long time ago, so smitten is she with things like family and love and kinship.

"Then let's get her and that dust."

He quickens the pace, uttering slurred words about how it's not far and that they're heading towards a decline to make the others keep up.

* * *

"What's going on with Regina?" Snow asks just as Tink's treehouse comes into view, unchanged since the last time he saw it. Emma's jogged up to them alone, biting her lip.

"She, uh, needs a breather." Her eyes dart up to the treehouse and, he'll swear he didn't imagine it, even with the moonlight painting everything into a hazy softness, she blushes, face redder than it had been when she ran. Her voice had risen when she'd first asked about Tinkerbell, this intriguing "every kid in the world knows her" ringing in his ears. "So...Tinkerbell's place."

Ah, don't be coy, love. You can't wait to meet her, can you? Grinning, he edges toward the ladder. A triumph this will be, her father cured and she will meet a childhood favorite just a few rungs away.

"Breather? Come on," Snow snorts, catching Emma's arm just as David starts for the ladder.

"You know as well as I do she was adamant about not running into her," Emma whispers, one eye on the treehouse. He'd sidestep out of earshot, but the plan _is _to all go up together and explain the situation and he refuses to miss what Emma's face will look like when she actually sees the fairy for the first time. "It's a bad blood thing like it always is."

Patting her daughter's shoulder to indicate she doesn't need to say anymore, Snow nods over to him to lead the way.

No lights emit from the treehouse, but that could just mean she's sleeping, the hours one keeps in Neverland entirely up to preference. He'll go first and he remembers with a smile if she'll spring out with a knife like she did the first time he'd met her, all rosy-cheeked and adorable with her little bun and yet so determined to be cutthroat. Sad fate for a fairy.

The treehouse sits empty when he shines the lantern up into it. It went without saying that he would go first, the only one really acquainted with her at all, but she should have heard them by now, even if she'd been asleep.

"No one's home. Come on up," he calls down to them. He sets the lantern down on an end table of sorts, able to walk the entire perimeter of the treehouse in seconds if he wanted.

"Where would it be?" he hears David talking to himself. The way he climbs up and begins all but ransacking the place, starting with the blankets on the hammock.

"She wouldn't leave dust just lying around, mate. It's not here, I promise," he hisses quickly, not even needing to sort through the little cubbyholes she's made for her scant possessions. Nothing to hide because none of it's worth taking. "I'm sorry."

"It's pretty bare...reminds me of someplace," Swan says still at the ladder while David maneuvers around him to rifle through the cubbyholes anyway. He makes an effort to glance around for a concealed shelf that blends into the woodwork just right, but alas, barren. There's little he can do but just stand and wait for the others to decide whether they should wait for her, if so, how long, or proceed with this endless game of Find the Camp Pan's started.

"You'd think a treehouse would be more cheery," Snow notes, the last one up. He'd be inclined to agree; however, Neverland tends to suck the cheeriness out of most people.

"Where I used to live. That's it," Swan says to no one before stepping out onto a balcony, more a lookout post, practically speaking. Sighing, he sits on the hammock and rocks it back and forth with his heels, watching David lift the lids off bottles and baskets. Something's going to have be done about that, and with haste, he thinks, focusing on that so as not to eavesdrop on some intimate moment between Swan and her mother, although given the treehouse's miniscule proportions, he makes out enough of their conversation—not really having a home, just somewhere to inhabit while waiting for things to get better.

Things won't improve with David. He'll drop dead within days, especially at the level in which he's been exerting himself. If he would just tell the others what happened to him, Regina might know of some healing spell, or at least a way to prolong the inevitable a while longer. The only other way he knows of to counter the dreamshade's effects really shouldn't be considered anything besides a last resort.

"Guys, I found something," David interjects, opening a white cloth. He stands and the others gather around to inspect it. "It's a handkerchief."

"That's Regina's!" Snow yanks it from him. "How did it get here?" Gods, Tink, what are you up to now?

"She was tracking us, watching Regina..."

"But if she's been watching her..."

"We're in the wrong place," he says, already scrambling back down the ladder. They hurry down one by one and retrace their steps back to where Regina had stayed behind with little difficulty. Pan knew they were there and, being so eager to "play" with them, no one had seen much point in covering their tracks. That required time and energy they just didn't have.

* * *

It truly does lighten the spirit to see Tink again, that it was at the points of several swords forgotten, although she's as unkempt looking as she's always been; she matches the number the last few weeks have done on him, he's sure. On his knees crawling around in some brush for fallen coconuts, he catches the legs of everyone else bustling about to build a fire. A discussion regarding strategy will lighten the spirit even more. Fortune favors him at the moment, a fine mound of them scattered around just waiting to be collected.

"Hey, we need to talk."

"Give a man a moment, Tink. It's difficult to carry too many of these at a time," he grunts, balancing one coconut each on his upper arms and holding a third in his hand. Hauling himself up, he waits for her to hold out her hand before dropping the third coconut into it. "Much obliged."

"Just what the hell is going on?" she hisses at him, glancing back at the others for a second.

"I'm thirsty."

"Just what is going on with these people? Who is this boy exactly? You've been here almost as long as I have and you know no parents have ever come to the island and now all of a sudden there's a full search party going on?" She's folded her arms, once again glancing back, mostly keeping an eye on Regina.

"Is that the woman who cost you so much? Regina? If so, I completely believe you that it was her fault."

"Killian!"

"Look, I don't know what it is you think you are missing. They're his family," he says with a shrug.

"But how is it this particular family even got here?" She's close to yelling, and Snow and Regina's eyes veer toward their direction. Swan stands off to the side on her own as usual, making quite the effort to not look in their direction. Not a far cry from her reluctant expression earlier, incredulous and almost pleading with the fairy to not do something to warrant a good skewering. And then she'd gone and offered her a place in Storybrooke to call home.

"Things are a bit...unconventional when it comes to this family. Swan!" If anything sweetens the formal introduction he's about to conduct it's the fact it will put Tink's misgivings away. Cynical fairies just aren't becoming. Swan, tight-lipped, hustles over to them, her eyes scanning the jungle as she does so. Grinning he steps back, creating some empty space between the two women.

"Lady Bell, this is Emma Swan, Henry's mother and someone who apparently knows a plethora of legends about you as she comes from a world where we're characters in a story. I think she's quite a fan of you," he says, not taking his eyes off her face going from alert and mission-oriented to completely thrown for a loop with her bottom lip dropping a fraction. That's the death glare he knows so well. Blushing, Swan falters a bit, bringing her hands up from her hips to fold them over her chest.

"Uh, it's, I really appreciate you agreeing to help us," she says after a while, Tink standing graciously with a patient smile. "And I meant what I said about you coming with us. No one deserves to be stuck here." Shooting him a gentler but no less frazzled expression, she looks back at Tink and stares at her for a while, her neck twisting back towards the fire. "I'm just...going to see if anyone needs any help."

Priceless.

"Well, well," Tink sighs. "Look at you. Happy. Never thought I'd see that."

"There's nothing to be happy about until you've helped us secure Henry. Now will you be joining us and help pick up some more of these..." He lifts his arm without letting the coconut drop. "Or are we really going to stand around and discuss perceptions of happiness?"

"No need," she says, stooping over to gather two more to add to the one she already has. "We'll all be pretty damn happy to be off this rock for one reason or another, won't we?" The fire lit, he sees David and Snow huddle near it and lean on each other. "So...what kind of stories?"

"They involve cake. That's all I know."


	24. A Prison of Sky and Earth

**A/N: There is a line Charming has in this one that I'm not 100% sure on. I watched the scene in question over and over again and for the life of me couldn't decipher it, so if you know what it is and notice it doesn't match up, sorry. This episode has no online transcript for me to double check, so please just trust me that even dialogue I have memorized gets double-checked (and triple-checked) against clips. There is also a scene "missing" in this chapter that will be written in a future chapter in the form of a flashback, so if you think I missed an important moment, I'm just holding off. Special thanks again to KillianHook on youtube for the clips and to all who have reviewed. It means a lot.**

* * *

A half hour or so of doing nothing but sitting and drinking coconut milk does wonders, he decides, had even rolled down and rested his head on a log for a few minutes, just watching Tink build a model of Pan's camp out of rocks and twigs, Swan watching keenly. Although he himself had only seen the camps a handful of times and that had been centuries ago, a sincere tackle at how the camp would look wouldn't have been too vast a departure from what Tink had constructed. Without a word, Tink rises and paces around the campfire, her eyebrows knitted. He wonders for a minute if she's knowingly left out some important detail.

"The rest is up to you," she says to them from the shadows, leaving him to conclude she may just be wanting to distance herself from the mission. Not an unfathomable assumption.

"Okay," Swan says, stooping over for a stick. She props herself up on the log next to her mother and examines the model.

"Sure there's not anything else at your disposal we could use?" David tries, and if it were for any other thing, Killian would be rolling his eyes. "No weapons of any kind?"

"I think what we've got is what we've got, David. Come on, you were rummaging through her stuff like you were on the hunt for cocaine," Swan scoffs at him with a crooked smile. Plastering an expression of complete seriousness, she glances back down at the model. "This is where they're keeping Henry, Pan's compound," she says, using the stick as a pointer. "According to, uh..."

"Tinkerbell," Tink replies as she passes by them.

"Yeah, I know. Still weird to say."

"Tink is fine."

"Not sure that's any better. Anyway..._she _says there are sentries positioned across the front which is why we're going to come in through the back entrance here. She's going to talk her way in. Once she makes sure the coast is clear, we are going to sneak on in."

Simple, and she knows it, but unless they could fly in and just swoop down and gather up Henry, it may be the only option available.

"You'll still have to deal with any Lost Boys once you're inside," Tink offers, a little breathless. She's descended from her treehouse with a blanket or two. Packing. He raises an eyebrow. In spite of her tone, someone's preparing for a move, he wants to announce, but quells it. It could easily imply an overwhelming desire to leave rather than a surprising level of faith in people she's just met.

"I think we can handle a few children with pointy sticks," Regina snaps. Oh yes, because last time was _such _a victory.

"It's not the sticks you need to worry about," she answers while folding up her blanket. "It's the poison they're dipped in."

"Dreamshade. Hook warned us," Snow says, and perhaps it's his imagination since he's only looking in her direction with the corner of his eye, but he could swear she's flashed a confident "job well done there" smile at him.

"Good, because one nick and the last-"

"Poisoned stick equals death! We got it," David cuts her off, standing up, more sweat beading his brow than usual, and after a respite, no less. He might feel even worse, he thinks, watching him turn his attention back on the model. "Now when can we put this plan into action?"

"I'm ready to go," Tink says with more congeniality and enthusiasm than she's offered this entire time. "Just as soon as you tell me the exit plan."

Not even the crickets offer anything up. It's been in the back of his mind...although he can't say the same about Swan's, given the way she's snapped her head in his direction, looking for anything. He sets his jaw. Even if they, by some miracle, all make it with Henry onto the ship, it's not as if there is any way to signal Rumpelstiltskin that they have him...and he's fairly certain those whose opinions count are dead-set against abandoning him here, and then there is the little matter of them not having another bean...

"You do have an escape plan?"

"This was more of a...last-minute trip," Snow apologizes. Understatement of the year.

"If you don't have a way off this island then none of this matters." Tink speaks as if she's scolding children and he can't rightly say he blames her. Bloody hell, he should have thought of something, but any time the thought crawled from the back of his brain for the front, something cornered it and had it running back with its tail between its legs—dreamshade, routes, finding water...

"We'll figure it out," Regina says, mustering some confidence.

"You'll 'figure it out'?" she about screams. "No one comes and goes from this place unless he allows it. This is a waste of time."  
"When it comes to family, we always find a way," David argues, a tad defensive about the whole thing. One or two of them could go back and fix the ship...right, he sniffs. He's the only one who knows how to do that and the only one besides Tink who knows how to get around in this place and he's not about to sit and write down instructions or make maps at a time like this. And that's when Pan will destroy the Jolly Roger anyway, just to be funny.

"You don't get it. Here, let me show you something." Tink reaches into a bag and pulls out a timepiece, not unlike the ones he's seen various people in Storybrooke wear. Henry's? "You know what this is?"

"Yeah, a watch," Swan finally speaks up.

"I got it off the people who brought your son here."

"Greg and Tamara? Where are they? Why'd they give you that?" Swan shouts at her, leaping off the log with Regina right behind her.

"I got it off the girl's body." It should surprise him. It would surprise someone more innocent, more expectant of honor in a place like this, but of course Pan killed them. They brought him Henry and so they were nothing more than discards after playing a hand. "I spent half the night cleaning the blood off it. And the other guy, well, there wasn't enough left of him to find anything useful."

He catches Regina smirking, as though she'd carried out the deed herself, so he doubts he'll ever hear any more of the sordid past between Regina and Greg or Owen or whoever he was to her.

"This is what Pan does to people he _employs_. What do you think he's going to do to you?" Tink continues. "I'm not sticking my neck on Pan's chopping block without a way off this island. When you figure that out, you know where I live."

She stomps off, back to the treehouse, leaving him holding his breath and wishing like hell chipping away at another tree trunk would count as being productive.

"Where is she going?" Snow all but mouths.

"I'll get her, bring her back."

"Don't. She's right." Swan's admission stops David before he can go any farther. She's kicking herself inside as much as he is, but he's the one who has been here before. "If there's one thing I've learned it's you never break in somewhere unless you know a way out."

"And where did you get that, in bail bondsperson's school?" Regina asks, rolling her eyes at her.

"Neal taught me that."

Neal...Neal, for whatever...criminal, flat-out odd past he and Emma shared, he did know how to leave. He left, and it had caused quite the uproar. Pan never, ever let any other boy leave Neverland...

"What about you, Hook? You got off this island before."

It takes a split second to hear someone, David, addressing him, his thoughts whirring all around him while also scoping out the past. He won't be the only one to dislike the answer.

"Yes, aboard my ship, which would require some form of magic to make a portal, which I got from Pan in a deal I don't think he's ready to repeat." He can't think about that deal now. He _won't. _It's all riding on an assumption that Bae found a way around Pan's tyranny, and yet just releasing any boy out of pity or boredom doesn't fit Pan's character, and word surely would have spread had a boy succeeded in making a deal with Pan to leave the island.

"So no one's ever left the island without Pan's permission?" Regina asks.

"One man," he says, looking over at Swan and nodding at her. "Her partner in crime Neal."

"How?"

"Maybe we can find out." He marches off, not at all enthused for the others to follow him. She'll figure it out. Neal, Bae, whoever, will have left some clue or some note or something pointing out just how he came to be stranded on the island in the first place and they'll turn on him...not that he ever had their trust to begin with. Emma will have nothing but contempt for him, as any sane person with a heart would after finding out what he did to a child, and he will be able to make no excuses. But the alternative leaves Henry in Pan's clutches and leaves Emma without Henry and leaves all of them on this island.

* * *

It takes the better part of an hour, but anymore that's a short journey, not that it matters in the first place since time does not exist here. He's passed by this cave before, surveyed it along with several others, but this one was the only one with evidence of anyone having lived in it, and as far as he knew, the only person off living on their own in Neverland besides Tink was the boy he'd abandoned.

"What is this supposed to be?" Regina huffs with her hands on her hips.

"So what, Neal swung out of Neverland on a vine?" Ah, Swan, good to have you back on the snark, he thinks with an exhale, noting her eyes as she examines the cave from top to bottom, with a hatred hot enough to incinerate it. They'll see soon enough.

"If someone would be kind enough to lend me a hand...what do you say, Savior?" She cocks her head at him, but takes a step forward, only for David to rush out with his arm out.

"I'll do it." Whether that little gesture was meant to keep Swan a good distance away or to save face and be a strong, capable man who was _not _dying, he doesn't know, but he leans toward the latter from the way he wheezes next to him as he takes hold of the rope attached to the pulley.

"You don't look so hot, mate," he whispers to him.

"Well, it's a damn jungle and I'm plenty hot." Hearty prince, to be sure, revealing the cave entrance all on his own, but just how long does the man think he can keep this up? Swan's an open book, but he knows Regina and Snow well enough by now to know the three of them can handle the wrenches life throws into things. They prefer the straight-forward and real to any charade, no matter how ideal, and this current demonstration of bloody showmanship is quite the charade all on its own.

"Ladies first," he offers, gesturing for them to enter first. Ought to follow it up with "Dying men next."

After Regina, David puffs and rests his weight by placing his hands on his knees before attempting to go in after her. He blocks and catches his arm.

"How much longer do you think you can keep up this charade? Don't you think your family deserves to know you're going to die?"

"Why do you care?"

"Why don't you?" He's near growling.

"What is the good in telling them when there is nothing I can do to stop the poison, when there is no hope?"

"Well if there's one thing I've gleaned from you hero types is that there's always hope." He says it before he can think about it, the anger and frustration at how much this secret nags at him clouding everything else, tainting it. David won't do it. He won't go out of his way up a mountain to the spring. Gods, he wouldn't even make it all the way up at this point, exit strategy gained or not, so why... He's looking at him.

"Is there something you're not telling me? Mate?" No man who loves his family the way this one does would even consider taking the drink. It's a fate worse than death.

"Alas hope and reality are most often worlds apart. I told you the truth. You'll never make it off this island alive."

"Then this is between us, and the only one they need to worry about saving is Henry," he whispers to him before entering the cave.

She'll lose him. Either way she'll lose her father, still having to get used to the idea of having him at all, but this way feels worse, feels like the thorns tearing into him this time instead of Liam. It's not a secret. Those, he can deal with; this is an outright lie, pretending everything is fine and everyone in good health when he knows just how opposite the case truly is. Perhaps if the cave holds the key to their exit, they run back to Tink, and snatch up Henry all within a matter of hours, he could live long enough to return to Storybrooke where some form of magic could fix him...

Now look at who's referring to lovely tales rather than the more gruesome truth, he thinks, shaking his head at himself.

"Hook," Emma calls from inside. "What is this place? What are we doing here?"

Without a word, he strikes some flint at a torch on the wall to no avail. Sparks fly here and there, but produce nothing lasting until David steps up and holds some sort of flame box up to it. Instant torch. Just marvelous. Smug, stubborn man—the last thing he needs is to feel he's even more superior.

The torch illuminates the cave, revealing drawing after drawing sketched into the walls by sharpened rocks, almost like chalk.

"Neal," she mutters. "This is where he lived."

"Aye. Baelfire spent some time in Neverland as a boy. This was his home." Not the home he'd imagined for him, but he'd ruined that one himself. He bypasses the drawing of a house that has Swan mesmerized.

"So you think he might have left a clue as to how he escaped from here?" Snow asks.

"Let's hope so, or we'll be lost as he was."

* * *

He won't dwell on why Emma's stormed out of the cave as he can be far more useful continuing to check for anything else that could help...not that he's oblivious when it comes to why she's gone. Discovering Milah once had to take shelter in a cave with nothing to occupy her time but lonesome drawings would break his heart right in half in spite of it being broken a long time ago. Not to mention that Neal seems to have the unique ability to disappoint Emma even from beyond the grave. Her parents won't understand, even though he fully understands and approves their decision to go after her...had either one of their hearts ever suffered from a former lover? No. No, the admittedly beautiful story of how they met and took back the kingdom together he's heard bits and pieces of points out that the first day they spent together was the first day they'd ever experienced love.

He shrugs and shuffles through a stack of parchment strewn over the floor, the heavy lines crossing out error-ridden charts feeling equal to Bae's now-ancient protests to them being a family. She'd been near tears enough looking over his drawings, all her energy into controlling them, and then that look. That look with that pointed question of knowing Bae pretty well...it's not that it bothers him that he reveals more than he intends when he's with her, but it still requires some getting used to.

"Anything else, or are we just waiting out the angst session?" Regina asks from against the wall of the cave with her arms folded.

"You're one to talk about angst."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I've had just about all I can take of these little breaks of sob stories when we're supposed to be rescuing my son!"

"Then, frankly, you need to hear more of them, Your Majesty, considering you're the reason she's not a princess who's never had to worry about who's going to leave her next," he snorts, about to step out himself if for no other reason than to avoid a fireball in his direction. His shoulders sink at the fact he knows precisely who will be leaving her next. By choice or by circumstance doesn't matter—too many people have left her alone, and for as amazing as she is now, as wild as her mere presence drives him, she is but a fraction of what she could be if she only believed in herself.

* * *

**A/N: Coming up? The guys go on a little trip. **


	25. To Dead Man's Peak

Swan returns to the cave after her parents, composed and unruffled except for the sides of her hair falling over her ears. A stiffness fills the air, low morale, he decides, everyone's movements more lackadaisical than before, including his own. The star map beat all these houses, hands, and faces on the walls, crude only because of how they were formed. He sees some cross-hatching in some of them to create the illusion of shadow.

He watches her from the corner of his eye...instinct by now, her fingertips pressed into the rock as though she's searching for a heat spot. He won't stop her. One thing the children of Neverland seem to revel in is hidden passageways, secret doors and the like. Perhaps it is a more entertaining thought than a pragmatic one, but she could stumble upon a panel or some such that could lead to more clues. Since when did you become so hopeful, he asks himself, choosing to glance over a set of drawings he's already seen and critiqued more than once.

Her motions gain some momentum when she rushes to the little mattress on a long, jutted-out spot on the cave. Gripping a corner, she starts to pull.

"Need a hand, love?"

"Is that a joke?" Frowning at him, she runs her hands along the seam of the mattress.

"No, I'm being quite serious." Together it takes no effort to pull the saggy, dusty thing off and away from the wall, a scattering of lines, tally marks, hidden behind and under it. Days passed. The boy had marked the days, numerous enough they cascade from the wall and onto the floor like a waterfall. Leaning in at the same time, he wants...but doesn't want...to estimate a number.

"What is it?" David calls to them, still over by the kitchen section of the cave.

"It appears Neal marked his days trapped on this island," he answers since Swan is leaping up onto the empty spot and crouching along the wall. His head snaps to the direction she's peering, in search of who knows what, but whatever's speaking to her is meant for her alone.

"What's wrong?" Snow asks, approaching.

"Look here," she says, tapping the wall. "Neal stopped counting." He has to hand it to the boy for attempting to count at all. The island had already darkened from perpetual afternoon to perpetual dusk by the time he'd had to have found this cave.

"Because he got off the island," Snow concludes, but he knows better. As endless as the tally marks appear, they can't add up to more than three months' time.

"He was here longer." She says it to him, fragments of a question in her tone, so he nods, a scenario flooding his mind of keeping Bae, finding a way off Neverland together and building some semblance of a life together, passing him off as a younger brother, wondering if fate still would have manipulated things to have the lad meet Emma, to have Henry with her...

"Then why would he..." David begins.

"Because he lost hope."

"You got that from scribbles?" Ah, Regina, not an ounce of empathy in you at all? One would think mothering would have softened that black heart. Swan tilts her head, the tips of her hair brushing against her knees as she leaps off, leaving him to wonder just how many days will go by before she loses her composure and punches the woman right in the mouth.

"I got that because it's what _I _did, every time I was sent to a new foster home."

Regina's eyes glance down at the ground for a second, her hands, while still on her hips, not as locked as before.

"I counted the days until counting seemed pointless," she adds, not wanting to look at anyone. He knows not to ask what she might have been counting to, knowing all too well a younger, more optimistic version of herself would have been hoping that each day would be the day she'd run into her parents, at some unexpected moment, with an explanation of where they'd been that would satisfy her and they would take her home, never to leave her sight again.

"You think the same thing's happening to Henry," David says. Maybe he is more adept at knowing his daughter than Killian had originally thought.

"Pan said that it would."

"Hey! We're going to rescue him!"

"Yeah, I know that and you know that, but Henry doesn't know that! Pan wants him to lose faith." Sadly, there doesn't seem to be much of a way around that other than to actually rescue Henry. The camp will just continue to move. Pan can amuse himself with things like that for years, only he doesn't want to keep Henry for years. This entire kidnapping differs so much from the others that its purpose must therefore differ, too. Whatever Henry means to Pan, it's timely.

"So what, you want to send him a message? Because I haven't seen a Neverland post office. What are you suggesting?" Regina asks.

"We take a page from Pan and we start being clever. We need to send a sign, a sign that we're coming." A sign that she never got...a sign that he never got...it's never even crossed his mind until now that Henry wouldn't _want _to go back with his mothers and grandparents, that by the time they reached him he would have surrendered everything to Pan and this chaotic, limitless life without boundaries or ties to anything.

"With Lost Boys running around trying to kill us all?"

Before Swan has to admit she doesn't have a specific suggestion, Snow's face lights up.

"Maybe it's time we use that to our advantage." Smiling as she says it, the corners of his own mouth turn up, slightly. They do come through for her. A total disconnect at times, but he's no one's parent and he's most decidedly never been anyone's child for long, so maybe he should not be the one to judge.

"How?" Regina asks.

"Follow me. I'll show you."

He should say something, something reassuring and complimentary, something along the lines of her mother's plan, whatever it is, working and Henry more strong-willed than ever. The boy stands up for himself, to be sure. Observing him just once reveals that, and the boy who argued so passionately for his evil queen of a mother's life just couldn't be a boy that gave up after what could only be a few days at the most. Life just couldn't be that cruel. It could, he corrects himself, and he won't garner her with false hope, so...

"Swan."

"What?" Nothing, not one bloody word spills from his lips, for they've gone completely dry, his eyes veering down to hers. Idiot. Bloody imbecile...I don't hear any reassuring. "We're wasting time."

"I...uh..." Gods, her eyes are popped like he's threatened her even though she's edging closer. "I just wanted to let you know that I too know what it feels like...to lose hope." It's easier to look into her eyes after uttering it, even as she's reading him, still acting like she wants him to be a liar and duplicitous with her, but her eyes veer down, too, in spite of herself. Blinking a few times, she shakes her head. It reminds him of when he wrapped her hand, how she'd been so thrown by the moment she shook herself awake from it.

"I know what this is," she whispers, and his face freezes. "This...you...trying to..." Rolling her eyes, she then plants them on the wall right behind him. "...bond with me." She faces him now, professional and cold. "So save your breath. I'm not in the mood."

She leaves without wanting or expecting an argument. It's something life and the long succession of hoops one must jump through to become a lieutenant teaches—trust is a long, arduous process and even then it takes only a few seconds to destroy it. A negative first impression isn't exactly a help in that matter, either. It matters so little that it only feels like he's known her all his life; reality beats him over the head that it's been scarcely a month, a month that involved leaving her in a cell and stealing a magic bean from her.

He starts for the exit, lost, lost but sure if he keeps doing what he's doing that something, _something _will change.

"Let me give you a bit of advice, Hook," David says, blocking the way out. Oh, lovely. An overly protective father. "She's never going to like you."

"Is that so?"

"How could she? You're nothing but a pirate."

He keeps smiling, saving face, summoning up a confidence and a superior amount of knowledge he doesn't have.

* * *

At this point, anything to crawl out from this odd, deeply irksome standstill she's forced him into, one minute looking like she's devouring him with her eyes and the next rebuffing him and pretending he's not there. He can't quite even determine if it's deserved or not, seeing as how he had only been trying to relate to her. Gods forbid he bring up this uncanny understanding they have, but she can of course bring it up whenever it suits _her _to do so. But then also, he should have known to estimate her reaction better, catch her at a better moment. But no. No, now he's following David into the jungle...and at her behest...rolling his eyes at every twig that snaps under his feet.

He's not nearly as drunk as they probably all assume. Three hundred years does give one a certain amount of tolerance, and yet being stone-cold sober and acting this moronic doesn't do much in the way of comforting him.

"What would you like to yell at me about now, Dave?" he prompts, answering the man's grunts as he reaches up for some more vines for the ropes that Snow and the others are fashioning into a net in order to either coerce or threaten a Lost Boy...Snow's vague like that.

"Stay away from my daughter."

"Well she can take of herself. She doesn't need your parenting. Which is a good thing." Oh, right—dying man front and center. That in itself warrants a drink. He'll drop dead, his family will be grief-stricken, and then Pan will take full advantage. Excellent end to a less-than-stellar existence.

"What does that mean?" David asks.

"It means you're going to die in a day or so anyway." Alone with him, now would be the time to bring up the spring, mention what the water can do. At least try, he tells himself. Even if he refuses it, you know about it, and the only kind of person who wouldn't mention it would be "nothing but a pirate."

"Nothing I can do about that," David says, turning around to face him. "But if I do die..."

"...when..."

"...it'll be in helping my family. That's something someone like you can't understand."

Fuck off, David. Walk backwards a step or two before keeling over to at least do me the courtesy of not falling on me. He stops and closes his eyes. David deserves time with Emma as much as she deserves to have her father, the idea of having a child of his own someday such a fantastical sort of prospect that he'd stopped looking at anything from a parent's point of view.

"What if I told you there was a way to save you?"

"I'd say no, because anything that takes us off-course of saving Henry is selfish. But of course you would think that's the way to go."

"Bugger off, will you? You think I'm being _selfish_?" Devious, bored, vengeful—a hundred other accusations at being back here he could live with, honoring Bae and trying to better himself obviously not among them, but selfish? He's lent out his ship, he's hosted his worst enemy on it, the brevity of that beside the point. He's been right here among them getting hot, getting dirty, getting hungry, getting tired... "I'm risking my life for all of you every moment I'm here aligned against him!"

"Oh, please!" he's shouting now, his voice carrying throughout the jungle. "You're not here out of any nobility! You're here for Emma."

It stings and he doesn't know why. To help her, of course. Having feelings for her, he's come to terms with, but summing all this up in one word, one _name_? It's like being cut across the face.

"And let me tell you something else." David charges toward him and he wonders if he literally will be cut across the face. "You're never going to get her. I'll see to that."

A lesser, more playful scenario might have the daughter resort to something brash just to spite her father's extreme, decisive words, but if the whole reason he truly has come here is for Emma...he can't think about the implications of that now...then something needs to be done about a man who views a life-saving side quest as selfish.

But not before he defends his honor for such a rapid succession of verbal blows.

"It's a good thing you're going to die then."

He dodges before David can even draw back his arm, expecting it. It's a sluggish punch, right up there with some inebriated ones where the poor sot falls flat on his face since they lack any control over the swing. Sure enough, David stumbles and Killian can only catch his waist to keep him from busting his chin open on the hard jungle rocks beneath them.

"Mate, mate, stop. I don't fight invalids," he says, knowing he should add something like "anymore" or "as a habit" to it, but he can barely hold him up. As he thought before, being right along with them all getting tired takes its toll. He sets him down just as he feels David's head slump against his arm. He's instantly heavier than he was before.

"Mate? Mate?" Oh, shit. Shit! Not now. He's not ready for him to die now. He flattens his hand against David's chest, tucking his lips into his mouth and debating about breaking into a run here and now. It would be futile to leave him with the others and rush up the mountain now, even if he was able to run the whole way. A heartbeat ends the sudden onrush of panic. Sighing, he takes his flask out again and pours a few drops against the gap between David's lips.

The only way he'll survive now, survive even past today, is if they go up to the spring now. He could return with him, drop off the vines, and tell Emma. She'd make the climb up the mountain, and at a faster speed than her ailing father. And just how will you be fighting off a belligerent father hell-bent on killing you with his last breath, he asks himself. A journey with Snow would produce the same results and he most certainly will not be asking Regina for anything. And then, no matter who he would go with to fetch the water, they'd have to bring it back down to David, and by then it would be too late. The two of them going together is the only way it will work.

At last David's eyes open along with disgusted gagging sounds.

"Have another drink," he says.

"No! Thank you, I'm okay now." Oh yes, random spouts of unconsciousness "okay" now. Not a health risk by any stretch. He has to start him on his "selfish" quest and has no idea how to start.

Make it unselfish.

Just how will that work? David, did you know Henry's at the top of this mountain and if we go up and get him, you'll have died saving him? Stubborn and tactless he may be, but he's a hearty, devoted prince, one that just might gladly die in pursuit of something worth dying for. He's still coughing.

"No, you're not," he says, hoisting him up with a grunt, muttering about having days left. At last he feels a boulder support David's weight enough for him to release him. Panting, he gestures at his shirt to see it. "Let me see!"

With much more reluctance than last time, David rolls up the end of his shirt, his breathing more ragged than ever. The inky poison has grayed his torso, spreading at a visible pace even as he looks at it. Killian can't help but wince at it, feeling his own organs clench at the notion. He follows the vine-like trails upward.

"The dreamshade's almost reached your heart. It's hours now. You have to tell your family."

"No." Gods damn it all. "Not when I can still help them save Henry." He takes a step but his leg quivers and he needs to catch him again. Right...this man climbing up the mountain.

"Catch your breath, mate, or whatever time you have left will be less." This David seems to have no trouble obeying, leaning against the boulder and closing his eyes. If one squints, it could look similar to nothing more than recovering after a hard sprint. Rubbing his chin, Killian shuffles from side to side, his nerves threatening to get the better of him. How to make the climb unselfish. Bloody hell, he can't even recall when it all started going downhill so fast—the map being nothing more than a taunt, Tink's refusal to help, the star map undecipherable... So let him pursue that much-desired exit plan, he thinks, letting Liam's insignia leave his coat pocket for the first time. It falls noiselessly into the dirt, allowing him to pace over to the side on the pretext of thinking. If this doesn't work, he's got nothing.

"What's that?" he asks when he sees David bending over as the gold embroidery pokes out from the dirt. Good, not locking his knees out as he goes.

"It's a military insignia. Jones." His ears twitch at the name, like David's addressing him as such. It is the price for trickery, he decides, forced to share his own past with the prince, perhaps even inadvertently narrate his own fall from grace. Catching it after David's tossed it to him, tears prickle at the question of did he know him.

"Aye, he was my captain...and my brother." Much like before, with Emma, it feels better having said what you thought you didn't want to share. He ignores the surprised, moved, even, expression on David's face and now throws in falsehoods with the truth, his mind barely paying attention to what his voice is doing, and for a moment, he needs to suppress a smile at just how absorbed the prince has become in the story. That's how it works, you see. Always convince the one you're trying to persuade that what you want is what they want as well. "I thought it was gone forever."

"What was gone?" And _that _is how one snags a prince.

"No, it's too dangerous." Even without any vine, he hustles back to the camp.

"What's too dangerous? If you know something that can help us, don't hold back."

"This insignia survived all these years," he begins. "Then perhaps my brother's satchel did as well, and inside that satchel is a sextant that can help us decode Neal's star map that can get us off this island." He almost wishes it were true, that all it would take is this little side journey to provide Tink exactly what she demands in order to obtain her help, but if it will keep David alive...

But it won't keep him with her forever. You know that, he argues with himself, wondering if all this will just seal David's fate worse. To be trapped here, with no hope of Pan allowing escape...

"I know how I'm going to spend my last hours."

Well, it's David's life and he will have to be the judge of that when the choice is presented to him. Killian Jones has become many things in the span of centuries, but he has always understood and valued the freedom to make one's own decisions.

"We're going to find that thing," David says.

"You might reach the top, but you'll die before you return." He pales for a moment, realizing that still could be possible, reaching the top and dying before even seeing the water...but then what plan is worth doing without a bit of risk?

"Then come with me and make sure the sextant gets back to Emma. You ready to be a hero?"

Well, if you insist. He about grins.

"The vines first, mate."

* * *

They've bunched up bushels of vines large enough to obscure their line of vision back to the camp where, pleasant surprise, the net is beginning to look like a net. Maybe for once things will run like clockwork and the ladies will succeed in relaying a message to Henry, although he's still not sure just how they'll decide to do that while he can keep David from making more fatal choices.

"We're about finished and were just going to get into positions," Snow says to them when they return and set the vines down by the rocks. "You might want to hydrate. It'll be like hunting, could take hours for a Lost Boy to come along."

"Well, we sort of planned on killing two birds with one stone," David answers her, accepting some of her water. Emma and Regina stop tying the vines into knots and look up at them.

"We may have a way to read the star map. Tell them." Thanks, mate.

"It's possible there is a sextant atop one of the mountains not too far off," he says, crafting his words with care, for while it's one thing to know his place and not cause unnecessary pain, he won't lie to her.

"A sextant? And you're telling us about this now?" Emma stands up and he answers her with nothing but a shrug.

"How do we know you're not lying?" Regina asks. You caught me, Regina. I am lying. David and I actually just want to go fishing and have ourselves an adventure while you do all the backbreaking work. He rolls his eyes at her.

"Well you don't, but I'm not." A sincere answer might be for the best, he decides. "It's the best hope yet we've had for an exit plan and don't forget we're going to need one." Perhaps he can work on that during the climb, half a day's climb, after all. Surely by then he can come to some conclusions.

"Then what are we waiting for?" It hurts, the temptation to ask her to come along, have another quest, just the two of them...and her father, but it will hurt so much more if her worst fears turn out to be true and Pan's diminished Henry into just another follower. He looks over at David for a second and sees the same temptation, to want to spend some more time with her, but with the resignation that it's just not going to work this time around. At least he knows that he'll be returning. Alas, poor David thinks this is the last he'll ever see of her.

And you do owe her an apology for being surly and making her uncomfortable earlier.

"Emma...you were right. You need to get that message to Henry. Every day without hope is a day closer to becoming a Lost Boy." It's unbearably kissable—the way she always acts so surprised when someone takes her side, and she looks so much more confident now than she did a few minutes ago, back a little straighter, chin a little higher. She'll do it. They'll send Henry that message and, since by all accounts the boy is a wily creature, there's always the chance that he'll come to them. "Your father and I shall go."

She and Snow glance over at each other, identical expressions of concern on their faces.

"Hook's right," David calls to them, gathering not quite as much rope as he had, but more than enough for his failing body to carry.

"Uh...you want to split up?" Snow asks.

"It's the last thing I want to do, but there's a chance he can get us home." He hangs back, a tad awed at how Snow simply nods her head and agrees to the plan, so much trust in each other, she and David. Responsible for Products of True Love and the like, the observation goes without saying, and yet one can't help but be a little envious of it when being around them.

"Emma, while I'm gone, just..."

"Listen to my mother?" He smiles and David laughs.

"Be careful." Said in the same tone as "I love you," so fatherly.

"Always am."

"And when you send that message to Henry, add something to it for me, would you?" Eyes widening, Killian is about to interrupt, something about time being short or something, for David looks about ready to blurt everything out and Snow is no longer gazing at her husband with those devoted eyes, but rather concerned ones. "Tell him, tell him Grandpa loves him." He wraps his arms around her and cradles the back of her head, like she's a newborn all over again, and he can't take his eyes off Emma, taken aback and muttering a muffled "okay" into his shoulder...and then nestling into his embrace just a little, smiling and savoring and wishing him luck.

"Are you all right?" Snow asks him when he at last lets go of their daughter and faces her. She sinks into the same loving hug like it's second nature to her. "I'll see you soon," she sighs into him.

"You know Neverland's a dangerous place. You just, you never know what's going to happen..."

David, time to go, he's about ready to shout at this point.

"David, you're going to be fine."

"Right." Nodding, he cups her face and kisses her forehead before kissing her and telling her he loves her like nothing else exists but the two of them. Once he sees she's back to adoring eyes, David meets up with him, certain he's marching off to his death.

* * *

**A/N: Coming up? Ha ha, you know what's coming up!**


	26. Epiphany

**A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews! They mean so much and I'm so glad this story is really hitting a nerve with so many people. I hardly ever update two days in a row, but I am close to where I want to be with the writing and Sunday will give me a huge piece of the puzzle for Season 3B, so here is a big chapter and I hope you like it. Again, I do not own the show, just a fan writer.**

* * *

"How are you holding up, mate?" He knows, he's asked it a dozen times already and is treating a warrior prince like a stubborn little child who refuses to admit he has to go to the bathroom, but, then again, this is indeed a stubborn prince who refuses to admit he's weakening, so he will continue to ask as long as the man is conscious enough to answer.

"Don't worry about me. Just worry about getting us to the sextant." It's a kinder tone than the one he was so fond of using earlier today so he will reward his amiability with some of his own.

"I meant the goodbyes. Looked a bit stormy back there."

"I did what had to be done, and I did it out of love. Emma and Mary Margaret will understand that," he says. He turns to check on him, worrying that his too-audible breathing is due to the dreamshade rather than the terrain, but David trudges along, not that far behind him. Hearty, to be sure.

"Going to tell them that from beyond the grave?"

"No, you are." Ha. That had better not come to pass. Best-case scenario, they head down the mountain together and Swan remains none the wiser, but again, the image of David dying halfway up the climb, never making it to the spring at all, presents the same problem. "You're going to tell them I died a hero, fighting for their way home. What you're not going to tell them is that I left already a dead man."

"The truth, you mean?" He's heard stories, stories from his father, stories from superstitious sailors, stories from those who had fought in wars—it didn't matter where they came from because all were agreed—you don't deny the dead their last wishes. Ghosts, he's not sure of, although he wouldn't dismiss the idea, and David haunting him for the rest of his life would certainly be a regrettable fate, but if he's to be a better person, if he's to gain the trust of someone he...someone whose trust he wants...he can't lie to her.

"Their last memories of me won't be of a liar."

"Why should I help you?" No, he wants to hear it. He wants to hear, in vivid detail, going back, alone, to the camp and breaking the news to Emma and her mother that David died...somehow, and, when asked why his veins are all black and he's probably swallowed his tongue, make up some story on the spot that Swan will rip apart in the blink of an eye and the next thing he'll know, Regina will crush his heart for being "messy" and therefore putting Henry's safety in jeopardy. David lets out a dark laugh.

"Well if you didn't steal that bean they wouldn't have had a chance to take Henry, we wouldn't be on this island, and I wouldn't be dying of dreamshade."

"Fair point." The prince, like Emma, may not have a way with words, but has enough passion and truth behind them to create a stir. "At least you got to say goodbye. Most people don't get that much." They just die. Milah had been lucky enough to tell him she loved him one last time, the last time anyone had ever said those words to him, and he had just knelt there in horror and disbelief. Liam hadn't had time to say anything, the raspy, strangled sounds unforgettable.

"You lost someone, didn't you?"

Damn perceptive family.

"This is where we ascend," he says, thanking the powers that be that the foot of the mountain is finally in sight. "I'll climb ahead and throw down the rope." Huffing, David nods and follows, keeping up with him for now, even letting out a little laugh.

"It was your brother, right? I had a brother, too, you know, a twin. He died before I ever met him."

Stories of one twin dying while being born are common enough and yet he refuses to believe anything this family has gone through constitutes as common.

"There were two of you? I can barely stomach one." To his surprise, David grins and laughs a nostalgic laugh at some story he must have heard or some strange event he'd been privy to.

"You would have liked him. He was a thief and a liar."

"Yeah, you would have liked my brother. He could be a stubborn ass. Now wait here."

* * *

He sits and waits, David excusing himself to "conduct his business" behind a tree a few yards away. He'd forgotten that Pan has a way of appearing omniscient, some of the more impressionable boys viewing him as some great god. Even if one tells himself it has more to do with having lived a very, very long time and being able to communicate with the island in some inexplicable way, it's nevertheless jarring.

Oh, he knows he won't do it, kill the prince. The yen to shut David up is not _that _relentless, for one thing. It doesn't take as much willpower as the uninitiated might assume to not fall for a villain's promises. Villains lie and mislead and Pan is no exception. The lies he must be feeding Henry... An empty shell of Emma is not what he wants, nor does he even want to leave Snow and Regina here.

Still, part of him curses the rest of him for rejecting the permission to leave.

"Done?" he asks when David's silhouette sharpens into himself as he steps closer to him and into the moonlight.

"Let's go."

They're almost to the top, the dreamshade growing more prominent the higher they go. If Swan had managed to come along somehow he would have teased her about the beanstalk not having such perils, but reality demands he be content with the silence of this climb, David quiet and brisk ever since they'd started the ascent.

He wedges himself between the boulders, untamed piles of dreamshade everywhere. David shuffles behind him, still in the mindset of searching for the sextant, and while it may initially earn him another punch in the face, he hopes seeing the spring firsthand and making all this way will change the prince's mind and have him rethink what's selfish and what's not.

"Since you're already dying from that stuff you won't mind if I stand back while you...?" he trails off at seeing David nod to him with a grunt. He takes a look at the vines and tries to peer through them to catch sight of the spring, as surprised as he was the first time to not being able to hear it. Turning back around, he jerks back at the sight of the tip of David's sword pointed right at his throat.

"I know about your deal with Pan," David huffs, one arm holding his side. A few more steps and he'll drive him right into the thorns.

"You heard that."

"Oh yeah, I heard that."

"Then you know I didn't agree-"

"You also didn't disagree." He's scrunched in well enough now that he can't even draw his own sword to block an oncoming attack.

"Don't you see? This is what he wanted. To turn us against each other."

All it will take is for David to take another step, just one more to either stab him with his sword or let the thorns do it. An eerie calm takes over in spite of knowing full well David's not bluffing. This won't be his end. It just won't be.

"Well it worked." The tips of thorns graze his coat.

"You're making the poison spread quicker, mate."

"I don't care. I just have to last long enough to get the sextant back to my family. Now take me to it!"

There's no point in denying the truth any longer.

"My brother didn't lose his satchel up here. I made that up." Any other person might have run him through for such insolence, but Prince Charming stands before him in denial.

"What about the insignia?"

"I dropped it on the path so you'd find it," he says, his hand holding his throat as soon as David backs up.

"Why?"

"Because I knew you'd never make the journey up here if I told you the truth."

"The truth? The truth you brought me here to die?" he bellows.

"I brought you here to save your life!"

"You're a liar!" He rushes towards him and it happens too quickly for negotiation or dodging. It doesn't even take that hard a punch now to send the prince to the ground. With nothing more than one bob of the head, he's still. Just as well. It probably would have had to have come to that anyway.

He will _not _come that close to the thorns again, he thinks, buttoning his shirt all the way to the top, looking for every scarf he has. Gloves on, he adjusts the empty canteen before looking over at the wall of thorns one more time.

"Bloody hell..." he murmurs before tucking the lower half of his face into his scarf. Just a week ago, if anyone had said he'd be back in Neverland saving the life of a man who drew a sword at him, he'd have laughed...and yet a week ago if the same person said the same thing but with the stipulation that it was for Emma's benefit...he still doesn't need to be happy about it. He starts hacking away at the thorns with his sword before David wakes up. His imagination teases him with notions of the spring having dried up or been polluted, but it remains, sparkling and pristine as ever. Filling up the canteen, he doesn't bother with the cap before retracing his steps backwards out of there.

Heaving an exhale as he emerges back out onto the peek, he spreads his arms out and stretches until his feet are shoulder-width apart. No sharp stinging anywhere, no ribbons of blood or tears through his clothes. Safe.

"Mate, wake up." Tapping the side of David's face, he raises an eyebrow that he's still in the same position, hadn't even shifted. You're not dead, not after all of this. Come on.

"Get off me!" Flailing all around, body this way and that, it's all he can do to try to hold onto him and steady him. They're the awkward lovechild of a dance and a brawl as he props himself up and leans against a rock.

"Look, in this canteen is the water that will stop the dreamshade, that will save your life," he says, slowly, loudly, since David's still coughing.

"That's why you brought me up here?" he asks.

"Yes!" Gods, if he'd wanted to kill him, would wasting an entire day alone climbing together have made any sense? There's silence, and then that look he knows all too well, but on someone else's face—the one where they look for a lie and are floored at not finding one.

"You knew I wouldn't come on my own, that I wouldn't leave my family."

"That you were stubborn, yes, I gathered that rather quickly," he says, cringing at the insistent coughing. So now it's all down to his decision, and to be honest, Killian's not only torn between what choice David will make, but torn between what choice he himself would make.

"Well...give it to me," he says, reaching for it.

"There's something you need to know first." Yanking the canteen back, he frowns. It's all up to you now, mate. "Because its power comes from the island, once you drink this water you can never leave Neverland." And please don't tell me you'll try to anyway. Please.

David stares at the canteen, nodding at it, accepting the harsh truth of the situation, his eyes latched onto it and yet also miles away, back with his wife and daughter and grandson.

"A small price to pay for what I get in return," he whispers. "A chance to save my grandson and to help my family get home."

Killian stands up and waits, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end when David raises the canteen in a toast, to good health, presumably, and downs the contents. The other springs of Neverland boast a cool, refreshing quality that nowhere else seems able to duplicate, the best water of any land except for a few select places in the Enchanted Forest, so one that restores life, even as it bonds you to the island, must taste fairly heavenly. Color returns to David's skin. He sits up and moves his muscles with more vitality, the way he taps his torso indicating the pain of the spreading poison gone. A hearty warrior prince who would die for his family lives another day, he thinks with a smile and offers his arm.

He hoists David up one more time, adjusting to seeing the man smiling, happy.

"One question," he says, his tone serious but yet unable to take too seriously with the way his face is still so lit up. "Why risk your life for me when there wasn't anything for you in return?"

Because I'm here for Emma. He can't even think of her name without smiling, and he's not sure that's such a negative thing right now.

"I didn't do it for you, mate," he says with a wink.

* * *

Had it been the other way around, Killian envisions himself contemplative, silent, even, trying to assign Neverland's foliage some kind of sacredness. Each moment following drinking the water would be a moment gained, something to be treasured, at least at first, but David weaves through the brush at lightning speed, regenerated. He won't stop talking, either. Half-formed ideas of exit plans and ways to make setting up camp more efficient bounce around with a childlike enthusiasm. He won't raise an eyebrow or criticize, though. That is what being alive looks like, what returning to someone looks like.

"Hurry up. We need to see how they got a hold of Henry!" he calls to him, and, in spite of himself, Killian finds himself quickening his pace, camp less than a quarter of a mile now. He smiles at the wording, "how" rather than "if." For they did get that message to Henry; he's sure of it, and he does want to hear how they managed it, probably as much as David does.

One last turn and Swan, Snow, and Regina face them armed and ready, her cutlass in hand. No doubt she would have been a scourge of the seas.

"You can stand down. It's us," David says. It's noteworthy, how the three women exhale and return to the casual positions they'd been in prior to the potential threat. They even tilt their heads at the same time in anticipation for news. He gleans the delivery of their message will be quite a story.

He opens his mouth without knowing what he'll say, but David rushes right past him and sweeps Snow up into the kind of kiss reserved only for reunions after long, painful separations. Even lifting her off the ground. Good form, mate.

"Where's the sextant?" Regina asks, turning away from it.

"I'm afraid Pan got to it first," he says quickly, ignoring the to-be-expected sounds of disappointment in favor of this new awkward reality that the man still has not let go of his wife, the latter pleased enough to almost pop her leg up into the air. She breaks away from him a fraction, dazed and blinking and looking like three other people aren't watching them. Her inquiries are hushed again by a repeat of the same, hands in hair, mouths all-too-visibly opening...

"Okay, I'm complaining..." Swan mutters, averting her eyes.

"What I wouldn't give for another sleeping curse."

Even knowing why, he's inclined to agree with them.

"Hook—he saved my life," David says. Right in front of them. Suddenly the appeal of keeping secrets makes full sense to him. He feels himself pale.

"You sure you want to tell them that, mate?" He's all for truth, of course, but to say something now...

"On our trek we were ambushed by Lost Boys, pinned down, outnumbered." Oh, David, noble liar... A despicable part of him relishes that he concealed the nature of the life-saving for now, relieved he won't be around when they find out. But the larger part, the part that he's wanted to make his whole person since they started this venture, feels nothing but shame. Credit, praise—shallow things. This veers so far off-course of the outcome he'd foreseen that a lost feeling overwhelms him. His eyes plead with David to stop. It wasn't about her knowing...

"He risked his life to stop me from getting hit by a poisoned arrow." He's approaching him, all eyes on him, Swan's bulging out of their sockets in terror. He musters a quick smile at her before facing David because, well now, her tensing in horror at his better decisions is routine.

"If it wasn't for Hook I wouldn't be alive." Ah, the full truth now. Sly, lying prince. "Your flask, please."

It's without thinking, whipping it out and handing it over like it was the old days at one of the endless promotion ceremonies, all of them standing in a line and toasting the one who exceeded expectations. His eyes alternate between Swan and the ground, face flaming up at her stare, only because it's softened now, something internal dominating her thoughts.

"I thought he deserved a little credit," David says with a smile.

"Thank you," he manages. It...no one...his chin is almost touching his chest he's averting eye contact so, and he knows he's blushing like some idiotic little boy who's so starstruck the prince, the _prince, _respects him, considers him in his debt, and is smiling at him like how good friends would smile. It's enough to prompt a tiny smile of his own, the uncomfortable way David handles even a small sip of the rum. He passes it off to Snow who is beaming at him, another quick glance at Swan twisting her mouth in such a way that she looks like a burdensome question is on her mind.

"To Hook!" Snow lifts the flask and takes a drink with slightly more gusto than her husband before passing it to Regina.

"I don't do rum."

Figures, he thinks. At least something feels normal in all this nonsense. He'll linger back since it looks like Snow and David will be following Regina's lead and returning to the tents, once again in their own little world where nothing exists but the stories they have to share now that they're together again.

"To Hook," Swan says after some pause, chugging it as she paces past him like she's starting for the brush. And here it comes, the interrogation, where he bloody can't win either way because there's no reason to ever even bother with a lie when it comes to her and yet she disdains the truth when it comes to him since she doesn't think she has any control over it. And...oh, she'll find out from him about the water, won't she? She'll ask what really happened.

"Did you really save his life?"

"Does that surprise you?"

She twists back so she's facing him and it's not so nearly a distrustful expression as he imagined. Rather, there's something a touch apologetic and a touch light about it, a silent "can you blame me" in it.

"Well, you and David aren't exactly...how do you say it, _mates_." She extends her arm to return the flask. He could give her an entire day's run-down on just how similar she is to her father, starting with how they each feel the need to check up on the other, and he hasn't seen her all day, so maybe that's why he takes no offense to it. It can't be the different way she's asking the questions this time around, guardedly, doing a thorough double-check and nothing more.

"That doesn't mean I'd leave your father to perish on this island," he says, choosing eye contact, choosing to bare his face to her, and it works. Maybe, finally, some trust is worming its way under her skin, her stance relaxing just a tad.

"Thank you."

It's too serious a moment. Still not knowing how to react to David's sudden adulation, it's a mistake to remain unsure and tongue-tied around her. The cave earlier proved that. A smirk and an eye-roll would feel downright refreshing, and if he knows anything, it's how to obtain those.

"Well perhaps gratitude is in order now," he whispers, tapping his lips, for once not caring if he shuffles around. She doesn't know it's nerves. He gives her a coy grin, mesmerized at how rapidly she goes from a stricken blink to just as broad a smile.

"Yeah, that's what the 'thank you' was for."

Flirtatious Emma Swan. She doesn't come out to play often enough. He feels like being enticing. He knows her well enough to call any bluff she might throw out...he moves closer to her, unable to stop smiling, unable to bloody calm down. Well, it has been all day since he's seen her...

"Is that all your father's life is worth to you?" he asks, and she is listening to his tone, not backing away, a sneaky glance at his lips.

"Please," she half-whispers, half-scoffs, a loose shaking of her head following. "You couldn't handle it." Flirtatious Emma indeed.

"Perhaps you're the one who couldn't handle it."

She searches him, but not at all how she usually does and a brief surge of panic courses through him that he doesn't know this look at all. It's only when her eyes stop and settle on his that everything, _everything_, rings with startling clarity. She's going to do it. She's going to-

She yanks him to her, her lips pressing into his with such a hunger he can't breathe, not that he wants to. His first impulse is to keep her there, to cup the back of her head, but he's so slow to it, his fingers trembling as they glide their way against soft strands of hair. Just that movement alone sucks his last breath and he can't break apart from her now. His shoulders rise with this damned need to breathe, too stupid to realize she's his air. Emma. My heart. My love.

My love.

She takes a breath with him and he's so far from done. His heart beats like it's beating for the first time. He can hear his own blood circulating, everything around them reduced to a dulled hum except for the hungry, beautiful sounds emitting from her. Their mouths opening, he's on fire...cleansed and made new by loving her, for he does. He loves her, adores her, and can't resist sliding his arm down hers and down to her waist when she staggers back. He's home, a hot, erratic way of realizing it, but he's home and she's home and he loves her and this is how it feels to be alive and return to someone and hold your entire heart out to them.

It's like she heard him just now, stopping, still a death grip on his coat. Her forehead presses into his hard enough to be painful, but he doesn't care. Not when she's panting like she's just sprinted the entire perimeter of the island. She's so close, her lips so close...

"That was..." He can't finish the thought.

"A one-time thing," she murmurs into his lips, finally releasing him. He shivers, the space between them as far a distance as between realms. One time? One time, that? The way she branded him hers with her lips and cleansed everything with her fire needed to be repeated, again and again. That's how it works when someone is your air, a stupid, stupid voice in his head tries to argue. She turns her back to him, shoulders still heaving, a patch of her hair mussed where his hand had been as she commands him to wait five minutes and bring back some firewood.

"As you wish," he says, placing two fingers onto where she seared him, his breathing regulating itself. He'll keep showing her, no matter what—he will look after her, and her family, and fight her battles with her...no less than she deserves, after all, and if, if, gods willing, she sees past the selfish, traitorous walls he himself had made, so much the better.


End file.
